


Every Doctor Has His Day

by SciFiFanForever



Series: The in betweens and back stories [2]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-16 15:35:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3493631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SciFiFanForever/pseuds/SciFiFanForever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another in-between and back story from The Day Of The Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really enjoyed The Day Of The Doctor, particularly the banter between the Doctors. 
> 
> At the end of the episode, all the Doctors came to their aid. How did they know, and how much banter would there be?
> 
> I came up with this story because I wanted to have a bit of fun and a bit of banter.
> 
> As a bit of fun for the dedicated Whovians, see if you can recognise the episodes that all the Doctors come from. (Answers at the end)

** **

**Chapter 1**

 

 

In a dusty, neglected barn, the Doctor put down the sack, unwrapped a brass inlaid clockwork box, and inspected it.

 

“How... how do you work?” He muttered to himself. “Why is there never a big red button?”

 

A scuffling noise outside made him get up and open the door. “Hello? Is somebody there?”

 

“It's nothing,” a woman said from behind him. “It's just a wolf.”

 

A Bad Wolf.

 

A pretty blonde was sitting on the box.

 

“Don't sit on that!” He exclaimed, he rushed over and pulled her up by her elbow.

 

“Why not?”

 

He ushered her towards the door. “Because it's not a chair, it's the most dangerous weapon in the universe.” He pushed her through the door and closed it behind her.

 

“Why can't it be both?” She made him jump as he turned from the door and saw her sitting back on the box. “Why did you park so far away? Didn't you want her to see it?”

 

“Want who to see?”

 

“The TAR-DIS. You walked for miles, and miles and miles and miles and miles.”

 

“I was thinking.”

 

“I heard you.”

 

“You heard me?”

 

“No more. No more,” she mimicked.

 

“No more” he echoed in his mind, the decision weighing heavy on his shoulders.

 

“No more. No more,” the blonde taunted.

 

“Stop it.”

 

“No more,” she said teasingly.

 

“Who are you?” He asked, but before she could answer, the clockwork in the box made a noise.

 

“It's activating. Get out of here,” he warned her. Not that it would have made any difference. You would have to have been halfway across the galaxy to avoid the effects of this box.

 

He tried to take hold of the box, but it burnt his fingers. “Ow!”

 

“What's wrong?”

 

“The interface is hot.”

 

The blonde woman gave him a saucy smile. “Well, I do my best.”

 

The Doctor ignored her, studying the Moment to see if he could activate it. “There's a power source inside.” He then remembered what he had heard about the Moment, the Galaxy Eater. The final work of the ancients of Gallifrey. A weapon so powerful, the operating system became sentient. According to legend, it developed a conscience. “You're the interface?” He asked uncertainly.

 

“They must have told you the Moment had a conscience,” she said. She waved her fingers with a smile. “Hello! Oh, look at you, stuck between a girl and a box... Story of your life, eh, Doctor?”

 

“You know me?”

 

“I hear you... All of you, jangling around in that dusty old head of yours. I chose this face and form especially for you. It's from your past. Or possibly your future, I always get those two mixed up.”

 

“I don't have a future,” he told her. He was about to make sure of that.

 

“I think I'm called Rose Tyler. No. Yes. No, sorry, no, no, in this form, I'm called Bad Wolf. Are you afraid of the big bad wolf, Doctor?”

 

“Stop calling me Doctor.” He hadn’t used that name for a very long time. He didn’t deserve to use it.

 

“That's the name in your head.”

 

“It shouldn't be. I've been fighting this war for a long time. I've lost the right to be the Doctor.”

 

“Then you're the one to save us all.”

 

“Yes.” No one else wanted the job, he thought to himself.

 

“If I ever develop an ego, you've got the job.”

 

“If you have been inside my head, then you know what I've seen. The suffering. Every moment in time and space is burning. It must end, and I intend to end it the only way I can.”

 

“And you're going to use me to end it by killing them all, Daleks and Time Lords alike. I could, but there will be consequences for you.”

 

“I have no desire to survive this,” he said sadly.

 

“Then that's your punishment. If you do this, if you kill them all, then that's the consequence. You live... Gallifrey. You're going to burn it, and all those Daleks with it, but all those children too. How many children on Gallifrey right now?”

 

“I don't know,” he admitted. It was too terrible to contemplate.

 

“One day you will count them. One terrible night. Do you want to see what that will turn you into? Come on, aren't you curious?” She asked him, bumping shoulders with him. She looked up and a whirling time fissure opened above them.

 

“I'm opening windows on your future. A tangle in time through the days to come, to the man today will make of you.” Or possibly his past… or possibly both, she always did get those two mixed up. It was hardly surprising really, when a sentient weapon of mass destruction is created by a race who see the past, the present, and the future as one and the same. Some individuals who lived in linear time didn’t know whether they were coming or going. Most of the time the Moment didn’t know whether it was coming, had arrived, or had already left.

 

While she contemplated that concept, a fez dropped through the portal. “Okay, I wasn't expecting that.”

 

The Doctor walked over and picked up the hat, brushing the dust and straw away with his sleeve.

 

“Who’s he talking to?” He heard a young woman ask from the portal.

 

“He said himself,” another woman answered, as he looked up into the swirling vortex.

 

He looked down at the blonde woman, and she smiled at him. He raised his eyebrows. “Well, I suppose I had better return this hat to its owner.”

 

She nodded, stood up, and walked over to stand beside him, both looking up into the portal. He bent his knees, and jumped into the air. Instead of falling back down to the ground, he continued to rise into the air, into the portal.

 

 

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 

“Yes, yes. I want to know more about this planet. Your technology, you say, reached its peak over two thousand years ago?” The elderly, silver haired Doctor asked Arbitan, the Keeper of the Conscience of Marinus.

 

His granddaughter Susan, and her school teachers Ian and Barbara were listening with interest.

 

“Yes, and all our knowledge culminated in the manufacture of this. At the time, it was called the Conscience of Marinus. Marinus, that is the name of our planet. At first, this machine was simply a judge and jury that was never wrong, and unfair. And then we added to it, improved on it, made it more and more sophisticated so that finally it became possible to radiate its power and influence the minds of men throughout the planet. They no longer had to decide what was wrong or right. The machine decided for them,” Arbitan explained.

 

“I see. And in that case it was possible to eliminate evil from the minds of men for all time,” the Doctor observed.

 

Arbitan smiled at the Doctor’s insight. “That is exactly what happened. Marinus was unique in the universe. Robbery, fear, hate, violence were unknown among us. Yes, yes, for seven centuries we prospered, and then a man named Yartek found a means of overcoming the power of the machine. He and his followers, the Voords, were able to rob, exploit, kill, cheat. Our people could not resist because violence is alien to them.”

 

Ian could see the flaw in the design. “But surely by this time this machine had become a great danger to you? If it had fallen into the hands of the Voords, they could have controlled Marinus. Why didn't you destroy it?”

 

Arbitan nodded his head sadly. “We always hoped to find a way of modifying it and making it again irresistible. So instead of destroying it, we removed the five key microcircuits.”

 

“What did you do with them?” Ian asked.

 

“One of them, I kept... There it is.” Arbitan pointed to a small electronic device. “The other four were taken and put in places of safety all over Marinus. Only I know where they are, and now the time has come when they must be recovered.”

 

Barbara, the ever practical teacher, saw a simple solution. “Well why don't you simply make new keys?”

 

“The keys are very simple, but the microcircuits inside are very complicated,” Arbitan told her. “A permutation of numbers and signals that would take a thousand years to unravel. And besides, since the keys were hidden, I have worked on this machine and modified it, so that when they're replaced…”

 

“... When they're replaced it would mean that your machine is irresistible and you can overcome and control the Voords again,” the Doctor reasoned. His Time Lord mind leaping ahead.

 

Arbitan nodded. “Yes.”

 

“Surely there must be someone you can send for these keys?” Ian asked.

 

Arbitan had a sad, far away look in his eyes. “Through the years all my friends, all my followers, have gone. They have never returned.” He looked down, tears stinging his eyes. “Last year I sent my daughter. She has not come back. All I have now to comfort me is the distant echo of her voice, the imagined sound of her footsteps. But now your coming's brought new hope. Oh yes, yes, you must find the keys for me.”

 

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 

“Ian, wait a minute. The Doctor's miles behind. I don't know about you, but I felt terrible leaving that old man. We seem to be his last hope,” Barbara said, referring to the Doctor declining to help Arbitan.

 

“Yes, I wish there had been something we could have done for him,” Ian agreed, but they didn’t see time lines like the Doctor did.

 

“Oh, come on, Grandfather,” Susan encouraged as the Doctor caught up with them.

 

“I'm coming, child. Don't rush, I'm coming.” He gave a wry smile. “Well, don't just stand there, come along, come along. Keeping me waiting.” He tried to put the key in the TARDIS lock, but something was forming a barrier a couple of inches away from it. “What?”

 

“What is it?” Barbara asked, sensing that something was wrong.

 

Ian looked closer. “Well, it's some sort of invisible barrier. What do you make of it, Doctor?”

 

“I don't know. I don't know. There's no substance here. Have a look round the side, child. Go along,” he instructed Barbara.

 

“It's like an invisible wall,” Barbara told him.

 

“Is it a circular barrier?” the Doctor asked, suspecting that some external force might have been preventing him from putting the key in the lock.

 

Susan had a closer look. “Goes all the way round. Can't see a cause to it.”

 

“No, of course, there wouldn't be. The molecules would be at their weakest. Ha! It's fascinating, Chesterton.” The Doctor had his smug face on. “Yes, I've got it, I've got it. You know, I think a force barrier has been put up around the ship.”

 

“I am sorry you forced me to keep you from your ship, but your refusal to help me left me no alternative,” Arbitan said from no discernable direction, causing them to look around them.

 

“Arbitan, where are you?” Ian asked the sky.

 

“That is not important. If you help me find the keys of Marinus, I will let you have access to your machine when you have delivered all the keys to me. If not, you will stay on the island without food or water. The choice is yours.” It was the best example of Hobson’s choice they had heard in a good while.

 

“Choice?” Ian said to the sky. “What choice?”

 

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

  

In the Conscience of Marinus control room, the group were studying a map supplied by Arbitan.

 

“Well, at least we know the rough location of the keys. Now all we have to do is get them,” Ian said

 

“As soon as you have started your voyage, I will release the force field. Your ship will be available to you when you return,” Arbitan told them.

 

“IF we return,” Barbara said, reminding them that no one else had managed it so far.

 

“I know we have no choice, but this whole affair is outrageous. Blackmail, pure and simply blackmail,” a very irritated Doctor said.

 

Ian rolled his eyes at the futility of protesting about the situation. “Oh, Doctor, don't lets go through all that again. Let's just get on with the job.”

 

“Perhaps you will bring me news of my daughter,” Arbitan said, his eyes taking on that far away look again. “I miss her... Yes, I miss her.”

 

The Doctor was unimpressed by the longing of what he considered to be a blackmailer. “And another thing. If you think I'm going to travel across that acid sea in one of these primitive submersibles, you're very much mistaken,” he said sharply.

 

Arbitan was quite hurt by that. He may have been desperate, but he would afford all the help he could to the group of adventurers. “I wouldn't think of asking you to travel in such an absurd way. No, I'm going to give you a device which will enable you to move from place to place.”

 

“Oh, really,” the Doctor said, wondering what other mode of uncomfortable transport was on offer.

 

Arbitan started to hand out futuristic travel dial bracelets. “The principle is much the same as that of your ship…” he started to explain to the Doctor. “Place that around your wrist, please,” he told Barbara, before continuing his explanation. “… You told me about, except this will enable you to cross space, not time.”

 

“What, this little thing?” Ian said sceptically.

 

“Oh don't be ridiculous, my boy. This is a perfectly acceptable method of travel,” the Doctor said as he put the device on his wrist and examined it. “Very compact and very neat, sir, if I may say. Yes.”

 

“They're all programmed to the same destination. You have only to twist the dial once,” Arbitan explained.

 

“Like this?” Barbara said, disappearing as she turned the control dial.

 

“Barbara!” Susan gasped as she looked at where she had just been standing.

 

Ian looked at Arbitan menacingly. “What! What have you done to Barbara?”

 

Arbitan ignored him, his words coming rapidly. “You must not waste time. You must follow, quickly. One final word. If when you return, you find the Voord have taken this building, do not let them get the keys. You understand? Destroy them! Now, now, twist the dials.”

 

Ian, Susan and the Doctor twisted the dials on their bracelets, and the room Arbitan was standing in disappeared. The Doctor seemed to be travelling down a swirling, vortex tunnel. In fact, falling would be a better description. Susan and Barbara’s voices sounded different, probably due to the vortex he reasoned.

 

“Dear God, that man's clever,” he thought he heard Barbara say. “Come on.”

 

“Where are we going?” That younger sounding voice must have been Susan.

 

“My office, otherwise known as the Tower of London.” What was Barbara talking about?

 

 

“Ooof!” The Doctor dropped out of the swirling tunnel onto a hard wooden floor. “Well, that’s a fine pickle. Arbitan could have warned us that the travel dials didn’t compensate for changes in elevation.”

 

He sat up and rubbed his sore back and bottom as he looked around. He had to be careful these days, a fall like that could send him straight into a regeneration.

 

“Susan… Ian… Barbara,” he called out, but his voice echoed around the empty room. Wherever he was, he was on his own. And the ‘wherever’ seemed to be a room in an art gallery. He walked over to one of the holographic paintings to examine it, and crunched the broken glass on the floor.

 

“Hmm,” he said, stroking his chin. “The shatter pattern seems to indicate that the glass was shattered outwards… Fascinating.”


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two more characters join the story.

** Chapter 2 **

 

  


Rose entered the console room, having come from the clothing department that the Doctor called the wardrobe. The Doctor and Jack turned to look, and their mouths fell open.

 

“Have I put all this on right,” she asked, holding her arms out so that the voluminous sleeves hung down. “The instructions said that the belt thing has to dangle down the back in Kyoto.”

 

She was dressed in a traditional Kimono of the Muromachi period, and the ‘belt thing’, the obi, was a wide sash around her middle. She wore bright red lipstick, and her pale complexion meant that she didn’t need the white face powder, that was common among the women of this period. Her blonde hair was styled up on her head in an imitation of the traditional style.

 

“Oh wow!” Jack said, giving her a wolf whistle as she did a turn.

 

The Doctor gave her an appreciative smile. “You look beautiful, and that blonde hair will make you the talk of Kyoto.”

 

“You don’t look half bad yourself,” Rose replied. They’d been to the wardrobe and managed to dress quickly, wearing the male montsuki version of the kimono, which was black, with a haori half coat, and a culotte-like hakama.

 

None of them were wearing the traditional geta sandals, opting instead to wear their trainers, just in case.

 

"Now, remember, this is feudal Japan, and etiquette is everything, so remember to bow. We are going to meet General Ashikaga Takauji, one of the main players in Kyoto."

 

“Will it be safe with all those Samurai around, carryin’ those sharp swords?” Rose asked.

 

“Very,” the Doctor said. “They have a code of conduct, and do not use their swords lightly. In fact the Samurai are very cultured and enjoy all the arts.”

 

The TARDIS had landed in a courtyard garden of a Zen temple, where an old, grey haired, puzzled looking gardener/monk was looking at them. Rose was looking around at the beautiful, traditional architecture.

 

“Oh this is beautiful,” she breathed.

 

The Doctor walked up to the monk and bowed. “Greetings kind sir, please forgive the intrusion into your sanctuary. We are travellers from afar, visiting your beautiful city, and are searching for the esteemed General Ashikaga Takauji.”

 

“Good day to you all, you have an interesting shrine there,” he said with a smile. “General Takauji will be in his residence at the barracks.”

 

“Thank you kind sir,” the Doctor said, as he bowed again.

 

They passed through the ornate archway, and walked down the main road of the city, towards the barracks. Rose’s blonde hair, and their European features caused a number of curious looks from local residents who were out and about on this pleasant, spring morning.

 

“So tell me, why are we here, in 14th century Kyoto?” Rose asked, as she bowed politely to an elderly woman who was looking at her blonde hair in amazement.

 

“Swordsmanship,” he said simply. “Every so often I get feelings, urges to do something. I’ve learnt to take notice of these feelings, because they are usually essential to my continued survival.”

 

“And you feel the need to learn how to use a sword?” Jack asked suspiciously. From what he’d seen of the Doctor so far, he seemed to be more of a pacifist, than a warrior, and he was right, for this incarnation. If he’d have met him a few months ago, he would have seen a man who was as ruthless as any Japanese shogun.

 

“I already know how to use a sword, I’ve had lessons from some of the best swordsmen in Europe, broadsword, sabre, foil, but the samurai, they’ve taken swordsmanship and turned it into an art form.”

 

Ashikaga stood and bowed to his guests. “Ishi, you honour me with your wish to study under me,” he said with a warm smile. He had shoulder length black hair, with a moustache and goatee beard. His eyes were dark, but full of warmth and humour.

 

“And this must be Rōzu, your ‘one who remains at home’. My lady, you have a rare beauty, the likes of which my eyes have not seen before.”

 

“Thank you sir,” Rose said with a bow. She made a mental note to ask the Doctor what ‘one who remains at home’ meant. The TARDIS had obviously translated it literally, and she had a feeling she wasn’t going to like it.

 

“Is Jakku your servant or bodyguard,” Ashikaga asked.

 

Jack gave a laugh as he bowed. “They wish; I’m a friend and travelling companion.”

 

“So, Doct…, er, Ishi, what do me an’ Jack do while you’re tryin’ to chop each other to pieces?” Rose asked.

 

“You can call me Doctor, Ishi is Japanese for doctor, and you can go shopping if you want to.”

 

Rose’s face lit up. “Shoppin’, really? Brilliant!”

 

“And I presume you have some good taverns in Kyoto?” Jack asked the general.

 

Ashikaga gave a single laugh. “We do indeed, I will assign one of my lieutenants to escort you and show you around. He will also deter unwanted attention; we don’t see many foreigners in Kyoto.”

 

“Thank you general, that will allow me to not worry about Rōzu, and focus on the training.” He turned to Rose and Jack, gave them a cheeky grin, and bowed. “See you two later then, and Jack..., stay out of trouble.”

 

 

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 

 

They burst through the doors of the TARDIS fell forwards on to the floor grating in fits of laughter. They heard the muffled ‘thump’ and ‘oof’ of the lynch mob outside hitting the TARDIS door, followed by ‘get off’ and you’re crushing me’, as other bodies pushed forward.

 

“So what exactly WAS the problem?” the Doctor asked with raised eyebrows, talking like a headmaster to a disruptive pupil.

 

“Oh let me,” Rose said with a giggle, her eyes sparkling with mirth. “Y’know what it’s like when lads get the ale down their necks an’ start chattin’? Well, Jack just happened to brag that he wouldn’t mind beddin’ a couple a geishas, if ya know what I mean?” She tapped the side of her nose and winked in an imitation of Jack.

 

“What’s so wrong with that?” Jack asked in all innocence.

 

The Doctor and Rose just looked at each other, and suddenly exploded into fits of uncontrollable laughter. With tears in their eyes, they picked themselves up off the floor and headed for the console. The Doctor started up the time rotor, before they all went to get changed.

 

The Doctor returned to the console room wearing his usual ‘man in black’ outfit with the ‘cool’ leather jacket, while Jack was wearing jeans and T-shirt. Rose appeared a short while afterwards, wearing black trousers, and a dark pink zip up top with 'Punky Fish' on the back, over a white vest top.

 

Jack was still a bit miffed that they hadn’t told him about geishas being male in the fourteenth century; he’d have been a lot more subtle if he’d have known, and they wouldn’t have been run out of town by a lynch mob.

 

The Doctor and Rose were still laughing about that, and Jack finally gave up trying to be annoyed at them and laughed himself, it would be just the kind of stunt he would pull himself. As they laughed together, the walls of the TARDIS seemed to get brighter, and the Doctor, seemed to drift away from Rose and Jack, without actually moving. The TARDIS faded, and he found himself floating in a swirling tunnel, slowly descending towards a dusty, orangey - brown floor below.

 

“Well, I suppose I had better return this hat to its owner,” he heard a familiar, gravelly voice say, and for a moment he felt as though there was someone else with him in the vortex, rising as he descended.

 

He dropped out of the portal into a crouch, to absorb the impact of the landing.

 

“Rose? Jack?” He called out into the empty, dilapidated barn. Light seeped in through the wall slats, illuminating bits of abandoned farm machinery, tractor tyres, a frame for a seedling propagator, and various wooden crates. Arched beams curved up to form a roof.

 

“Hang on… I know this place,” he said, as he reluctantly turned and looked over his shoulder. His breath caught in his chest as he spied the brass inlaid clockwork box. “Oh no, no, no, no! Don’t make me relive this again,” he pleaded.

 

Before he could contemplate whether the Moment would respond, he heard faint voices coming from the portal. “You are, by your own admission, a vagabond.”

 

“Oh yes, yes, very much so. Phase one,” another familiar voice said.

 

 

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 

 

“Lift off in five seconds from now. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero,” a voice said over the speaker, as the rocket containing the decoy satellite launched. The Martian Ice Warriors were using a homing signal to guide their invasion fleet to the Moon, and the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe were trying to stop them.

 

“With any luck, we should have some nice heavy rain before long. Ah, there we are,” the Doctor said as he entered the Transmat Control Centre with Jamie and Zoe.

 

A team of Ice Warriors had beamed to Earth to take over the Weather Control Bureau, and prevent it from raining. Rain would destroy the fungus seed pods they were using to terraform the planet for Martians. The Doctor had jury rigged an infrared device which melted the Ice Warriors and gave them back control of the Bureau.

 

“Yes, the satellite,” Assistant Commander Gia Kelly said.

 

“Isn't that a beautiful sight?” Professor Eldred said.

 

“We finished and installed the homing device. It's working perfectly,” Gia said with pride.

 

“Well done,” the Doctor said, giving her a warm smile from under his pudding basin hair cut.

 

“Doctor?” Gia said tentatively.

 

“Yes, Miss Kelly?”

 

“I know we're sending up a false signal, but aren't some of the Martian ships bound to follow the right one?”

 

“There isn't going to be a right one,” he told her. “There's only going to be ours, the wrong one, and that's going to lead the entire Martian fleet into an orbit around the sun.”

 

“What about Slaar's signal?” she asked. Commander Slaar was the Ice Lord who was in charge of the invasion plan.

 

“Oh, obviously that has to be stopped,” he said as a matter of fact.

 

The Professor looked puzzled. “But how?”

 

“Well, as soon as the satellite is up, I shall Transmat myself to the moon and destroy their homing device.”

 

Gia looked horrified. “They'll kill you on sight.”

 

“Oh, I don't think so. I've rigged up a rather interesting little device here,” he said, holding up the infrared projector.

 

“What's it for?”

 

He raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Well, it's a development of the solar energy device that you so successfully used on the moon, only I've succeeded in rendering it portable. I've got a solar battery.”

 

As they’d been talking, the satellite had been deployed and started transmitting.

 

“Well, there it is,” Gia said. “It's in orbit. We're now picking up the alien's homing signal from the moon.”

 

“Well, that means that their invasion fleet is getting closer. There's not time to be lost. Now, are you quite clear? As soon as I have succeeded in destroying their signal you must activate our signal in the satellite,” the Doctor told them.

 

Commander Radnor straightened up and puffed out his chest. “Oh, we'll be ready.”

 

“Right, then I'll be off,” the Doctor said.

 

“Oh Doctor?” Zoe said as he approached the cubicle.

 

“Yes? What is it, Zoe?”

 

“You will be careful, won't you?” she said with concern.

 

He gave her an appreciative, fatherly look. “Don't worry, Zoe, I will... Are you ready, Miss Kelly?”

 

“But Doctor, our control of Transmat hasn't been tested,” Gia said worriedly.

 

“Then now's the time to test it.”

 

She operated the Transmat controls, and the Doctor realised that something wasn’t quite right. In the other Transmat journeys, the view out of the cubicle changed as he moved from one location to the other. Now, he seemed to be in some kind of swirling tunnel that seemed vaguely familiar, but for the lives of him, he couldn’t think why.

 

He could see a vivid green carpet approaching, and he braced himself for a landing. He dropped out of the portal into the grassy undergrowth of an arboreal forest.

 

He sat up, and looked around the tranquil wood, pulling bits of grass and leaf litter from his hair. “Oh dear. Unless I’m very much mistaken, this isn’t the moon!”


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here are some more Doctors.

** Chapter 3 **

  


In the InterMinorSpacePort, the Doctor removed a melted transistor from the Miniscope, a machine that keeps miniaturised groups of creatures in miniaturised versions of their natural environments. The Time Lords had banned such machines but apparently one escaped, and now Jo was trapped inside it, along with the passengers and crew of the SS Bernice.

 

“Vorg?” The Doctor said to the travelling showman.

 

“Doctor, I shouldn't stay too near the Scope. The Drashigs, you know,” Vorg warned him, his handle bar moustache twitching nervously.

 

The Drashigs were massive snake-like creatures that were also trapped inside the Miniscope. They had six eyes on stalks, fanged mouths and segmented bodies with greenish brown skin. They were very strong and could burst through metal structures.

 

The Doctor ignored the showman's trepidation. “Listen, Vorg, I shall need your help. I've got to get back inside this machine.”

 

Vorg looked at him in disbelief over his round, rimless glasses. “What?”

 

“Well, it's the only way I can get Jo out of there in time and save the rest of your livestock. But I shall need you to trigger the settings for me.”

 

“Settings?” Vorg said, looking puzzled.

 

“Look, this is your machine, isn't it?” The Doctor asked.

 

“Well, of course it is. Why?”

 

“Then I presume you know how it works.”

 

It was at this point that Vorg’s assistant, Shirna enlightened the Doctor. “He won it, Doctor.”

 

“He what?”

 

“It was during the Great Wallarian Exhibition,” Vorg started to explain.

 

“You know what gamblers the Wallarians are. Well, Vorg had the magum pod concession,” Shirna finished.

 

Vorg could see that the Doctor didn’t understand. “Surely you've seen it? I have three magum pods and a yorrow seed. You know, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye. You put the yorrow seed under the middle pod…”

 

“Yes, yes, I have seen something similar. You say you won this machine? And you haven't the faintest idea how it works?” He asked. Unbelievable. “I see. Well, look, this Wallarian that you got it from, did he by any chance give you a green or a blue disc. A thing about this big?” The Doctor indicated the size with his hands.

 

“Oh, he gave me a lot of odds and ends. They're in my bag. I think there is something like that,” Vorg said, with no intention of doing anything about it.

 

“Well go and have a look, will you? It's very important,” the Doctor said as though he were a headmaster talking to dim student.

 

While Vorg rummaged in his bag, Shirna enquired as to what the Doctor was planning. “What's the idea, Doctor?”

 

“Well, it's simple, really. You see, the Scope's, er, omega circuit is broken. Now if I can link it to the TARDIS and use that as the master, I can re-programme the Scope.”

 

“And what will that do?” She asked.

 

“Well, two things I hope. It'll enable me to get Jo out of here in time, and get her out of this wretched contraption, and it will return all the other life forms to their original space time coordinates.”

 

“So they'll all get back to where they came from.”

 

“I sincerely hope so, yes.”

 

Vorg lifted a disk in the air. “Is this it? A bit mucky, I'm afraid.”

 

“Yes, that's it. Thank heavens you kept it. Look, come with me and I'll tell you what I want you to do. Er, would you mind just waiting there for a moment?” The Doctor went into the TARDIS, and brought out a tangle of equipment and cables, which he attached to the Scope.

 

“Will it work, Doctor?” Vorg asked.

 

The Doctor looked at him as though he had just insulted him. “Yes, of course it'll work.”

 

“Well, it's not very well insulated,” Vorg observed, never having seen one of the Doctor’s cobbled together inventions before.

 

“Then don't touch any bare metal. Right, now listen to me. This is the phase one switch here. And this is the phase two. Now, don't touch the phase two until the last possible moment. Do you understand?” He said, lecturing the dim student again.

 

Vorg nodded. “I've got that. Phase one, phase two. Yes.”

 

“Good.”

 

Pletrac, the Inter Minorian Immigration officer, wasn’t happy at how things were progressing. He was worried that this illegal immigrant in his green velvet jacket and frilly shirt, was trying to escape. “What are you doing?”

 

“The Doctor's going back into the Scope,” Shirna said helpfully.

 

The grey skinned official tried to look authoritative. After all, it was he who was in charge here. “You will remain here. You came here illegally. Regulations demand that you be sent to the ICCA.”

 

“What's the ICCA?” The Doctor asked.

 

Vorg explained. “The Inner Constellation Corrective Authority... You won't like it, Doctor.”

 

“Prison?” he asked in amazement.

 

“You are, by your own admission, a vagabond,” Pletrac said, almost challenging him to deny the fact.

 

Rather than denying it, the Doctor wholeheartedly agreed. “Oh yes, yes, very much so. Phase one,” he said to Vorg as he put his hands on the modified Miniscope. Vorg pushed down the handle and the Doctor vanished.

 

‘Hmm, this isn’t right’, he thought to himself as he fell through a swirling tunnel. ‘The damage to the omega circuit must be causing a vortex’.

 

 

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 

 

Ace was sitting on a slowly moving roundabout in the playground. The Doctor had brought her back to her hometown of Perivale in the suburbs of North West London to see her old friends. The problem was that most of them seemed to have gone away, left the area and disappeared. She noticed a black cat nearby as the roundabout gently moved her past it.

 

She went over and picked it up, sitting on one of the swings to cuddle and pet it. The cat had other ideas though, hissing and wriggling out of her arms. She felt the wind blowing on her back, and turned to see a Cheetah sitting on a rearing horse.

 

“Wow!”

 

Meanwhile, the Doctor was crouching behind a garden fence, trying to entice the same black cat out into the open with some cat food. He had seen the black cat earlier at the community centre, one of Ace’s old haunts where they had gone to find her friends. However, they hadn’t found her friends, only a self defence class run by a sergeant called Paterson.

 

What kind of self respecting dog eats cat food? He thought to himself. Well, a hungry one obviously, but that wasn’t helping him to catch a cat. “Go on, go away! Go on! Shoo! Dog, go away!”

 

“Doctor!” He heard Ace shout, obviously in distress.

 

“Ace!” He ran out of the garden and down the avenue. towards the small park at the end of the street.

 

“Doctor!” He heard her shout again, as he entered the playground. There was no one around, only a roundabout, slowly grinding to a halt, and a single swing reciprocating, marking the passage of time like the pendulum on a grandfather clock.

 

“So, they've taken you away, taken you to their planet,” he said to the sky. “But I'll find you. I'll bring you back. They're not going to stop me. Nothing's going to stop me.”

 

He went back to the avenue, and saw the black cat sniffing at the bait. The Doctor sneaked up and was preparing to grab it by the scruff of the neck. “Got you!” He declared.

 

“Got you!” Paterson also declared, as he grabbed the Doctor’s arm. “Now, what do you think you're up to?”

 

“Sergeant!” The cat ran away.

 

“I've had complaints,” Patterson said.

 

“What's it got to do with you?”

 

“Neighbourhood watch.” The woman who owned the fence that the Doctor had been crouching behind, had complained.

 

“I've no time for that. I've got to catch that cat!” He pointed down the avenue, in the direction of the escaping feline.

 

“You're a public nuisance.”

 

“Will you leave me go?”

 

“Now, look, don't be stupid. Don't get yourself into real trouble.”

 

The Doctor pushed his finger against Paterson's forehead and the man dropped like a stone. “One finger can be a deadly weapon,” he quoted, remembering Patterson telling his self defence class the same thing.

 

The Doctor started crawling around the bins and black rubbish bags, where the black cat had taken the bait again. “Why don't you come out and we'll talk about this sensibly, hmm?”

 

The black cat ran away again, as Paterson arrived at the end of the alley on his bicycle, spotting the Doctor. “Hey, come back! Come back here!”

 

The Doctor climbed onto a wall to approach the black cat. He was nearly there when someone grabbed his ankle.

 

“Got you!” Patterson declared again.

 

“Get off!” The Doctor kicked his leg, trying to loosen Patterson’s grip. The cat jumped off the wall and disappeared in a flash of white light. The Doctor and Paterson lost their balance and fell off the wall, also disappearing in a flash of light.

  
He wasn’t certain where Patterson had gone. He couldn’t feel him clinging onto his ankle anymore. All he knew, was that he was falling through a swirling tunnel of time and space, towards an orangey - brown floor.

 

 

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 

 

A silver haired man fell out of the portal head first, executed a perfect Aikido roll, and sprung to his feet with hands held in a fighting pose. He looked left and right quickly, and then lowered his hands, brushing the dust and straw off his green, velvet jacket with his hands. The Doctor immediately recognised his third incarnation.

 

“This isn’t the inside of the Miniscope,” the third Doctor told himself, and then spotted the ninth Doctor. “Ah, you there my good fellow. Don’t be afraid, it won’t harm you,” he said, nodding up at the swirling Time Fissure. “Is the owner of the farm about?”

 

“Owner?” Nine said in confusion.

 

Ah, a bit of a simpleton, Three thought. “Yes, you know, your employer.”

 

“Employer? You think I’m a farm labourer,” Nine said, crossing his arms in annoyance.

 

“Well, aren’t you? You’re certainly dressed like one,” Three said, pulling at the frilly cuffs on his shirt.

 

Nine looked down and pulled at his black jumper. “What’s wrong with this jumper? Look for your information Beau Brummel, I’m...”

 

“Got you!” A voice declared in triumph from the portal.

 

“Get off!” A different voice shouted with a slight lisp.

 

“Aaaargh…” Nine grabbed Three’s elbow and pulled him to one side as a man wearing a brown jacket, grey flannel trousers, a woollen jumper with question marks on it, and a white straw hat, landed on the floor of the barn in a cloud of orangey - brown dust. “Oof!”

 

“... The Doctor,” Nine finished quietly, looking down at his seventh incarnation. “What is this, some sort of dysfunctional family reunion?”

 

“Who’s this fellow then?” Three asked, waving his hand in front of him to clear the dust.

 

“It’s you!” Seven said, propping himself up on his elbows and looking up at Three. “Long time no see. And who’s the farm worker then?”

 

“Farm worker? Look, just ‘cos I choose to dress like I don’t need a social worker,” Nine said, looking Three and Seven up and down. “Doesn’t mean I’m a labourer.

 

Three and Seven looked at each other, up and down, and looked back at Nine. “Social worker?” They said together.

 

“Well, come on, you do look as though you need someone to help you get dressed in the mornings,” Nine said with a cheeky smile.

 

“Excuse me, but just who are you?” Three asked Nine.

 

“Well, if I’m you,” Seven ventured. “Then I’m guessing he’s me.”

 

Nine fished in his jacket pocket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver with a grin. “Give the man a medal”

 

“Oh my God, I become a navvy,” Three said in despair.

 

“Never mind all that,” Seven said irritably. “You’re my third incarnation from my second regeneration. I’m in my seventh body, so which one are you?” He asked, looking enquiringly at Nine.

 

Nine hesitated as he looked at the brass inlaid clockwork box. That was one regeneration he didn’t want to admit to. “Nine… I’m in my ninth body.”

 

Three peered through the gaps in the wall slats. “We’re on Gallifrey by the look of it. So how did we get here? I was trying to teleport into a Miniscope to rescue Jo.”

 

“Oh, I remember that. It was the Spaceport on Inter Minor,” Nine said.

 

“And I was trying to catch an alien disguised as a black cat…” Seven started to tell them.

 

“When I fell off the wall and ended up on the Cheetah planet,” Nine remembered.

 

“And what about you, how did you get here?” Three asked Nine.

 

“I was in the TARDIS with Rose and Jack.” He saw their questioning looks. “My friends that were travelling with me. We’d just left Kyoto, and were laughing about Jack’s misdemeanour, when I was teleported away.”

 

“So it would seem that someone intercepted the matter stream and brought us here,” Seven said.

 

“Not someone,” Nine said, looking over at the Moment. “Something.”

 

Seven walked over and stooped down to inspect it. “What is it?”

 

“The Moment,” Nine said.

 

“The Galaxy Eater? Surely not,” Three said, joining Seven to look at it. “We remember this from the time before the fall of Pythia. It was the greatest and worst creation of Peylix.”

 

“Yeah, Omega. The Moment was the natural progression of The Hand,” Nine said.

 

“But what is it doing here? It should be in the Omega Arsenal in the Time Vaults,” Three said. Both he and Seven saw the look on Nine’s face. A look of self loathing, guilt and remorse.

 

“Oh my dear boy,” Three said quietly. “Don’t tell me you used it. What could be so terrible that would force you to use such a terrible weapon?”

 

Nine raised his eyebrows. “Trust me, you really don't want to know." He then thought about the question. "Anyway, you know better than to ask me about events in your future.”

 

“Yes, but worth a try,” Seven said light heartedly.

 

“And besides, I don’t remember much of it. It must have been so terrible that it caused a regenerative fugue. I woke up in the TARDIS fifteen hours later with big ears and the knowledge that I had used the Moment, but no memory of how.”

 

“Is that why we are here then, for you to get that memory back?” Three asked as they all looked apprehensively at the Moment.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You guessed it - more Doctors join the story.

** Chapter 4 **

 

  


The TARDIS had been forced to land on a dark and stormy night on a rocky and remote planet. The Doctor emerged in a rage; certain some external influence - most likely the Time Lords - had made them land there.

 

After Sarah Jane had left him sulking, and explored the local area, she saw a vast plain strewn with the wreckage of dozens of spaceships. They found the decapitated corpse of a crash victim, which the Doctor identified as a Mutt, a mutant insect species widely established in the Nebula of Cyclops. He eventually realised from the stars that they were within 'a couple billion miles' of Gallifrey.

 

Sarah Jane jumped at the flash of lightning and clap of thunder, which revealed a nearby castle, looking like a basilica with lots of flying buttresses.

 

“Come on. At least its civilisation,” she said as it started to rain. She tried to cover her head with her quilted jacket, while the Doctor put up a broken umbrella.

 

She rolled her eyes. “Oh God. Come on.”

 

After being given shelter by the castle’s owner, Solon, they were given a glass of wine.

 

“You know, I always knew that one day I'd have a guest with a head for such a fine vintage, Solon said.

 

Sarah Jane wasn’t convinced, and tipped her drink into a bowl when no one was looking. Suddenly, the doors blew open and the wheel chandelier crashed to the floor. The cloth was ripped away from a bust and the fire was blown out. The doors slammed shut again, and Sarah Jane came out from underneath the table.

 

“What was that?” she asked as she stood up.

 

“Oh, just a freak squall,” Solon informed her.

 

“Or a telekinetic visit,” the Doctor suggested as an alternative explanation.

 

“What?” Solon said, surprised by his insight.

 

“From the Sisterhood of Karn.” The Doctor had realised that they were on the planet Karn, where the remnant of Pythia’s power ended up.

 

“What do you know of the Sisterhood?” Solon asked suspiciously.

 

The Doctor drunkenly tapped the side of his nose and turned to look at the bust. He stood and walked over to it. “I know who that reminds me of now. One of the Time Lords... Morbius.”

 

Sarah Jane saw him stagger slightly. “Doctor, are you all right?”

 

He didn’t respond to her question. “One of the most despicable criminally minded wretches that ever lived.” He sat down again and passed out.

 

“Doctor!” She shouted.

 

“There are some of us who would not agree with that, Doctor,” Solon said to the slumped Time Lord.

 

Sarah Jane realised that he’d been drugged and slumped back in her chair, feigning unconsciousness.

 

Solon’s servant Condon, picked up the Doctor and carried him to the laboratory. When they had left the room, Sarah Jane carefully opened her eyes, and started to follow them through the hallways.

 

In his lab, Solon listened to the Doctor's hearts with a wooden stethoscope. “A secondary cardiovascular system. So he's a Time Lord. I thought as much. That's excellent, because we have no problem of tissue rejection.”

 

“Time Lord dangerous,” Condo said.

 

“What?”

 

“Much power, master.”

 

“Rubbish! The Time Lords are spineless parasites. Morbius offered them greatness once but he was betrayed and rejected. They'll pay for that mistake, Condo. These pacifist degenerates will be the first to feel the power of his revenge.”

 

Solon put a scalpel against the Doctor's throat, as Condo brought a trolley of surgical implements.

 

“What's that for? Do you think I'm going to operate in this light? We need proper lighting and power for the instruments, so we have to repair the generators. Come.” Solon picked up the lamp and led his servant out of the laboratory to try and restore power to the castle.

 

Meanwhile, unbeknown to Solon, The Sisters of Karn were on their knees around Maren, the High Priestess, who was on a raised circular dais. She was gazing into the large stone on her ring.

 

“Sacred fire. Sacred Flame. Sacred fire. Sacred Flame. Sacred fire. Sacred Flame. Sacred fire,” they chanted, invoking the teleportation power of the Sacred Flame.

 

Maren's ring showed her the Doctor draining a goblet of wine and smiling. “So, our enemy thinks himself safe in Solon's castle,” she said with scorn, thinking that the Doctor had come to steal the last drops of the Elixir of Life. Without the Elixir the Sisterhood would be doomed.

 

“Sacred fire. Sacred Flame…”

 

Back in the laboratory, a glowing mist drifted over the Doctor and he slowly faded away.

 

The effects of the drugged wine started to wear off, and he found himself floating head down in a swirling tunnel. He looked down, and could see his floppy hat that had freed itself from his pocket. It was falling ahead of him towards the green ground below. His long scarf had been affected by the rotation of the vortex, and had formed a helix in the direction that he was travelling. Which was down.

 

 

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 

 

The wrinkled little alien sat in his mobile life support system, and watched his prisoner being escorted into his laboratory. He looked up with sightless eyes, his vision being supplied by the single optical unit on his forehead.  “Welcome, Doctor. I have waited many years for this meeting,” he croaked.

 

“I'm sorry to have detained you,” the Doctor quipped in reply.

 

“It was but a pleasure deferred. Now you are here, you will repay tenfold for the mental agony I suffered.” He was referring to his ninety years of cryogenic imprisonment, whilst being fully conscious.

 

“I'll say one thing for you, Davros. Your conversation is totally predictable. You're like a deranged child, all this talk of killing, revenge and destruction.”

 

“It is the only path to ultimate power.”

 

“But to what end? Just more suffering for those unlucky enough to survive?”

 

“Only for those who resist my will.”

 

The Doctor turned to Mercer, one of the guards, and he handed over his high tech rifle.

 

“What are you doing?” Davros asked with concern.

 

“Until I walked through that door, I foolishly hoped you'd changed enough for me not to have to do this,” the Doctor said, his voice tinged with sadness.

 

“Stien, kill him!” Davros screeched at the remaining armed guard.

 

“I'm not here as your prisoner, Davros, but your executioner.” The Doctor realised that there was no other option for this poor, mad being. It would be an act of kindness to put him out of his misery.

 

“Listen to me.You, in your way, are not an unambitious man. Like me, you are a renegade.”

 

“Save your breath,” the Doctor said.

 

“I had planned to completely redesign the Daleks. Kiston will confirm I am telling the truth.”

 

The engineer who had worked with Davros, nodded his head. “It is so.”

 

“My mistake was making them totally ruthless. It restricted their ability to cope with creatures who rely not only on logic, but instinct and intuition. That is a factor I wish to correct.,” Davros explained.

 

The Doctor didn’t doubt the truth of Davros’ words, only the motivation. “And compassion? Are they to be programmed for that?”

 

“They will learn to recognise the strength that can be drawn from such an emotion,” he said.

 

“But only to make the Daleks more efficient killers,” the Doctor reasoned.

 

“To make them a more positive force.”

 

“For destruction!”

 

“The universe is at war, Doctor. Name one planet whose history is not littered with atrocities and ambition for empire. It is a universal way of life.”

 

“Which I do not accept,” the Doctor declared with a hint of pride.

 

“Then you deny what is real. Join me. You will have total power at the head of a new Dalek army,” Davros offered.

 

“Doctor,” Stein said, looking at the security monitor.

 

Two Troopers were in the corridor outside.

 

“Outside,” the Doctor ordered. “Deal with them.”

 

Stien and Mercer left the laboratory.

 

“To be honest, I wouldn't know what to do with an army.” He raised the rifle and pointed it at Davros’ head. Especially a Dalek army, he thought to himself.

 

“You hesitate, Doctor,” Davros taunted. “If I were you, I would be dead.”

 

What Davros didn’t realise, was that it wasn’t hesitation on the Doctor’s part, it was deliberation. If he killed Davros in cold blood, it would be the first step on the bloody road to damnation. He would become that which he most despised.  “I lack your practice, Davros.”

 

“You are soft, like all Time Lords. You prefer to stand and watch. Action requires courage, something you lack,” Davros goaded.

 

Before he could tell him that it took more courage to not interfere, there was the sound of a firefight outside. The Doctor stepped out of the laboratory to investigate the noise.

 

“Stay where you are,” Stein shouted.

 

“No, no, you need medical attention.”

 

“I can't control my mind. I'm not safe. I caused Mercer's death. I've got to get away from here,” he told the Doctor. He had been brainwashed by the Daleks to do their bidding.

“No, wait! Look, I can help you,” the Doctor told him.

 

“Don't try to follow me. I may cause your death.” Sergeant Stien turned and left the Doctor in the corridor on his own.

 

The door to the laboratory slid shut and locked the Doctor out.

 

“I'm an imbecile,” he said to himself as he rested his head against the metal door. At least he had been spared the agonising decision of whether to kill Davros or not. He carefully made his way back to the Time Corridor.

 

“We are ready to descend,” one of three Daleks announced from the chamber.

 

“Proceed. Everything in the warehouse must be exterminated, including Lytton and his Troopers,” a voice screeched back.

 

“We obey.”

 

The Doctor watched the Time Corridor door close then took a couple of packs of explosives from the nearby armoury, before walking back to the Time Corridor door. He pressed the domed button, and the door slid upwards to reveal a now empty chamber.

 

He stepped inside and waited for the door to close. The Time Corridor activated, and he was surrounded by a swirling vortex tunnel.

 

 

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 

 

The Doctor’s recent regeneration had been affected by spectrox toxemia, caused by exposure to unrefined spectrox on Androzani Minor. Having developed even worse dress sense, and attacking Peri without remembering it, he decided that he needed some solitude while his regeneration stabilized.

 

“I am a living peril to the universe. If this poor hive is to be cleansed, there's only one recourse. Contemplation. Self-abnegation in some hellish wilderness. Ten days, ten years, a thousand years! Of what consequence is time to me? I shall become a hermit, and you, child, shall be my disciple. I know the very place. An asteroid so desolate. Titan Three is where I shall repent!”

 

Only Titan Three wasn’t that desolate, in fact it was a veritable hive of activity. After a ship crash landed, they found a survivor, Hugo Lang, the Flight Leader of a search mission looking for two kidnapped genius children. They then looked on the TARDIS scanner and saw a building, something which had no place on an uninhabited asteroid.

 

So, leaving Lang behind, they set off to investigate and found a tunnel which led into the building. And of course, they ran into trouble.

 

“I see. You abduct these children, deprive them of their memories, bring them to this screaming wilderness and won't disclose your motives? That hardly sounds in character,” the Doctor said to Professor Edgeworth, who he previously knew as Azmael, a fellow Time Lord, PrydonianAcademy tutor, and master of Jaconda.

 

“You're wasting time,” Azmael said.

 

The Doctor spread his arms. “Oh, what's time to us? You're in trouble, Azmael, grave trouble.”

 

“There is a point beyond trouble. You can't help me now.”

 

“Don't be absurd. You and I together? What an infallible combination,” the Doctor said.

 

A Jacondan called Noma, in the service of a slug like alien called Mestor, sneaked away to arm a panel that had No Cancel Function. Start time was 9.44, the end was set to 12.10.

 

“Let this at least be clear, Doctor. I am no longer Master of Jaconda, but I can still save my people. I will do so, whatever the cost, even the price of friendship. You were always full of good intentions, Doctor. I cannot risk you interfering now,” Azmael told him.

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“You must stay here.”

 

“As prisoners?”

 

“The lock on the main door has ten million million combinations. Now, will you please move over there?” He asked the Doctor. “You too,” he said to Peri.

 

He turned to the twin abductees. “Into the transmat area. Don't try to follow us. Once we've gone, the transmat will become random. Try to use it and your remains will be spread across the surface of this miserable rock. If it's of any comfort, Doctor, I too remember that evening by the fountain. Farewell.” He was referring to a time in the Doctor’s fourth incarnation, when they had got drunk together, and the Doctor had thrown him in a fountain to sober him up.

 

Azmael joined the twins and Jacondans in the transmat alcove, where they all joined arms and disappeared. Peri sighed and sat down on a bench. The Doctor sat beside her on the back of the bench.

 

“Poor fellow. He's not a bit like that really,” he said to Peri.

 

“Don't care what he's like. He's left us here forever,” she complained.

 

“No, Peri, a few days at most.”

 

“Did you hear what he said? Ten million million combinations.”

 

“That's what I mean. It may take even me a few days. Well, no time like the present. Let's get started.” He stood up, moved over to the door control console and started to input commands.

 

While the Doctor used the computer terminal, Peri explored the room and found the red flashing panel that Noma had set going.

 

“Doctor? Doctor! Doctor, quickly!” She called out.

 

“It's vital you don't interrupt the sequence,” he said in irritation.

 

“Well, it's vital you see this. I don't like the look of it one bit.” She was obviously distressed.

 

“All right, all right, I'm coming.” He finished inputting a string of code before giving an exasperated sigh. He walked over to the alcove where Peri was waiting for him.

 

“Hmm? Oh, no.... He can't, he wouldn't have. We haven't got a few days, or even a few hours. In fact, we haven't got that many minutes.” Talk about having a bad day. He was still in the first fifteen hours of his regeneration, recovering from spectrox toxemia. He had tried to kill his companion for no apparent reason. His old friend and tutor had kidnapped two children, and then locked him in a room that was set to explode sometime soon.

 

No wonder he was bad tempered.

 

“It's a self-destruct mechanism, isn't it.”

 

“That I can't switch off.”

 

“Are we going to die?”

 

“Not yet. It means we've got to find another way out of here, and very quickly indeed.”

 

The Doctor started searching the room, looking for inspiration, when he saw the twin's equations. “Eureka! I can do it, Peri. I can do it.” He sat down and started working on the equipment in front of him. After a few minutes, he straightened up. “That should do the trick.”

 

“What trick?”

 

“I'll be brief,” he said.

 

That’ll be a first, she thought to herself.

 

“I must be very brief.”

 

That’ll be impossible.

 

“That is known as a revitalising modulator. It breaks down your molecular structure and puts it back together again. A most refreshing process. Until now, that's the only purpose it's served. I have improvised. It will take you back in time.”

 

“What?”

 

“Ten seconds, to be precise. You'll find yourself in the Tardis.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Absolutely. In you get.” He shepherded her into the teleport chamber. “Oh, no, wait a minute. Awkward. I won't be able to see the computer clock when it's my turn and I need to be able to compensate for the time factor so I arrive back at the Tardis at the same time as you do. Your watch, Peri. Lend me your watch.”

 

Peri unfastened her watch. “Come on, quickly. Now, when I stand clear, press the button. Do hurry, Peri. In precisely one minute I'm going to be blown to pieces.”

 

Peri pressed the button and vanished in a flash of light.

 

The Doctor looked at the teleport chamber with raised eyebrows. “It worked! It actually worked!”

 

He looked at Peri's tiny wrist watch and shook it. “Oh no, it's stopped.”

 

He made an adjustment to the console, before stepping into the teleport chamber and pressing the button. As he stroked his cat brooch for luck, he was surrounded by a swirling vortex of light, and felt a sensation of falling.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three of the Doctors finally meet.

** Chapter 5 **

 

 

  
“Come on, Kristof, come on. Kristof. Where...” The regenerated clone of Morbius was calling Zarodnix, his genetic scientist.

 

“I'm here, my lord. The infuser is prepared.”

 

“Where's Straxus?”

 

“He's on his way.”

 

Morbius was referring to a poor, unfortunate Time Lord called Straxus, who was supplying him with DNA to keep his forced regeneration viable. Kristof Zarodnix had designed a molecularly-sealed specimen capsule which had been constructed by the Trell, who were under his control.

 

“What's taking him so long? What if he's dead? If he's dead...” Morbius said in concern. Had they taken so many of his cells that he had perished?

 

“He's not dead. Our readings show that he will survive for ... a number of years.”

 

“A number of year... a number of years? And what then? I need another Time Lord, if I am to sur... survive.” He was failing, becoming weak after subjugating another world to his will. “And yet, in all my campaigns, not a sign of them. Where are they, Kristof? Where have all the Time Lords gone? And when Straxus is dead, perhap...”

 

“Please, my lord, don't upset yourself...” Zarodnix fawned.

 

“Listen to me. Kristof, listen,” he said, as he looked over the balcony into the deep canyon below. “Down there, in the canyon. Maybe that's where my ultimate destiny lies.”

 

“You're overwrought, my Lord Morbius. It is always this way before the feed...” Zarodnix turned as he heard the door open. “Ah, it's Straxus. Where's your guard?” The bionically controlled Trell called Rosto should have been escorting him from the dungeon.

 

“Never mind that. Quickly, bring him to the infuser,” Morbius commanded.

 

“Come forward, forward. Come closer!” Zarodnix called to the figure in the hooded monks robe.

 

The figure shuffled across the room and stopped in front of Morbius. “Remove your cowl, Time Lord. I want to see your rotting, stinking face as you feed me.”

 

The figure flipped back the cowl to reveal not a part eaten Time Lord, but a fresh faced one with short, brown, curly hair and a mischievous smile. “Well, there's gratitude for you.”

 

Morbius’ eyes were wide in disbelief. “You. Doctor! But...”

 

“And I'll take that.” He grabbed the Stellar Manipulator Activator hanging around Morbius’ neck and yanked it off, snapping the chain.

 

“Kristof, he's got the activator. Shoot him! Kill him!”

 

Zarodnix drew his side arm and approached the struggling foes, wanting to get a clean shot at the Doctor.

 

“Go get him, Rosto!” Lucie said to the Trell interplanetary marshal. He had been injected with augmentation nanocytes, which brought him under Zarodnix’s control. What Zarodnix didn’t know though, was that Lucie had made a big impression on Rosto Caradia Trell, Interplanetary Marshal, when he arrested her as a stowaway on a Zarodnix Corporation star ship. That first impression was now helping Rosto to override the commands from the augmentation nanocyte implants.

 

“Get away from me. Obey me!” Zarodnix shouted, aiming the gun at the ten feet tall, millipede Trell. A shot rang out, and Rosto staggered backwards.

 

“Lucie!” He called out as he slumped to the floor.

 

“Rosto, no! Straxus, we've got to help him,” Lucie pleaded.

 

“Lucie, you must help the Doctor,” Straxus reminded her. Damn! Why did these things always come down to having to choose? Just for once it would be nice if there was just one person to help, one person to save.

 

“Let go of the activator, Doctor. The power of the Stellar Manipulator is mine,” Morbius growled.

 

The Doctor smiled at him. “Your grip is weakening, Morbius.” He looked up to the sky over the canyon. “Orthena, Orthena, help me now... now!” He called out to the Mother Superior of the Sisterhood of Karn.

 

Morbius gave a derisive laugh. “You're seriously appealing to those witches? Not man enough to do the job yourself, Doctor? Always relying on puny females.”

 

The Doctor struggled with Morbius on the balcony, twisting this way and that to try and wrest the activator from his grasp.

 

Lucie’s eyes were wide with fright. “Doctor, look out. He's going to push you off the balcony!”

 

“Stay back, Lucie, stay back,” he told her. “Orthena, now is your time, now!”

 

“Shoot him, Kristof!” Morbius shouted.

 

Zarodnix raised his gun and pulled back the hammer.

 

“No!” Lucie screamed.

 

“Lucie!” Rosto intoned, using her name as a block to the nanocyte programming. He staggered forward and caught Zarodnix with a blow to the neck with one of his many arms.

 

“My throat ... is...” Zarodnix gasped as he dropped the gun, grabbing at his throat to try and breath. He staggered around the balcony before stumbling against the railing and tipping over the edge into the abyss.

 

“You're weakening, Morbius,” the Doctor noted.

 

“No...”

 

“And if I can just...” The Doctor fumbled with the activator as they struggled, and managed to switch it off.

 

“He ... he's shutting down the Manipulator. Keep at it, Doctor,” Straxus encouraged.

 

Lucie too could see the tide turning, her impish smile framed by her golden locks of hair. “That's it, Doctor. You've got him now.” If it carried on any longer, they’d be chanting like cheerleaders.

 

“Give it up, Morbius. The Manipulator is shutting down. The power of the Time Lords is returning. They'll cross the time-lines and write you out of history. Now, let go!”

 

Realising that his strength was failing, Morbius grabbed the Doctor in one last hug. “If there is no destiny for me, then you will join me in my oblivion.”

 

“Morbius!” The Doctor shouted as they fell over the edge of the precipice.

 

“DOCTOR, NO!” Lucie cried out into the abyss.

 

The darkness seemed to brighten around the Doctor as he heard a familiar chant of, 'sacred fire, sacred flame.' It was Orthena and the Sisterhood of Karn, they were teleporting him out of the canyon. He heard Lucie call his name in despair from above, as the very air around him started to swirl in a vortex.

 

He looked down, past his feet and saw a polished wooden floor at the end of the vortex tunnel. He put his arms out to balance himself, as his long black frock coat billowed around him. He landed lightly on his toes, flexed his knees to absorb the impact, and sprung up with his arms out as though he had completed a perfect gymnastic floor exercise.

 

“Oh well done dear boy,” a cultured, elderly voice said from behind him. He turned around to see who was there, and his eyebrows raised in surprise. “Got caught up in the portal as well did you?”

 

“Er, yes… Yes I did. But how can you be here?”

 

“Well, I was using this travel dial bracelet to…”

 

“No, I mean how can the two of us be present in the same time line? Okay, I know we’ve done it before… on more than one occasion…”

 

“Are you telling me that you are my future self. Mmm?”

 

“Number Eight, pleased to meet you… again.” They both stood with their hands holding the lapels of their quarter length coats.

 

The first Doctor wore a waistcoat and chequered trousers under his coat, with a black neck kerchief tied around a high collared shirt. The Eighth Doctor wore a waistcoat and brown trouser, but his shirt was unbuttoned at the top and he had a loosely tied scarf around his neck.

 

“Well, it’s nice to meet me, number Eight. Glad to see you’re looking after my old body so well,” he chuckled.

 

“Aaaargh!” They both looked over at the portal, as the sound of someone falling echoed around the gallery. A young, fair haired, Edwardian cricketer fell out of the swirling tunnel and rolled across the floor. Two explosive packs skidded across the polished wood of the floor.

 

“Urgh. This isn’t the warehouse,” the young cricketer said as he climbed to his feet.

 

“I say, are those explosives?” One asked, causing the young man to turn around.

 

“Someone’s come tooled up for a job,” Eight said. “Hang on. Two packs of Dalek explosives. That was when Davros escaped from his cryogenic prison. How’s that going?”

 

“Oh, hello,” the young man said with a pleasant smile, which turned to a frown when he recognised his first body. “Wait a minute, what are you doing here?”

 

“Ah, we’ve already covered that one,” Eight said. He turned to the first Doctor. “Doctor, this is your fifth body.” He turned back to Five. “And I’m your Eighth.”

 

“Mmm. And does he need salad cream for that buttonhole?” One asked, spotting the celery stalk on Five’s lapel.

 

“Now, now. There are few men who could pull off a vegetable as a fashion accessory, and I think he’s accomplished it rather well.”

 

“Look, can you leave my choice of buttonhole decoration to one side for the moment and tell me where I am, and why I’m here please.”

 

“Mmm. A very good question dear boy,” One said.

 

“We were just getting to that part when you dropped in. You said you were using a teleport bracelet, Right?” Eight said, turning to One.

 

“Yes, yes, that’s correct,” One confirmed.

 

“And I was falling into the canyon with Morbius, when the Sisterhood of Karn teleported me out,” Eight told them.

 

“Whoa! Just back up there a minute,” Five said. “Morbius is dead. The Sisters cast him into the canyon after I stunned him in a mind-bending contest in my last body.”

 

“Er, yes, they did. But a Morbius groupie cloned his brain tissue and regenerated him.”

 

“Morbius, that reprobate war mongerer? He was exiled wasn’t he?” One said.

 

“Yes, that’s him, but we’re getting off track gentlemen. What were you doing before you got here?” Eight asked Five.

 

“I was in the Dalek Time Corridor.” He looked over at the explosives, a sad, resigned expression on his face. “I was going to…”

 

Eight reached out and rubbed his upper arm in comfort. “I know. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of when we’ve had no other choice.”

 

One rubbed his chin. “So it would seem that each of us was a stream of dissociated atoms when something hijacked us and brought us here.”

 

They all looked up at the portal. “But that would mean being able to override the Time Lock,” Five said.

 

“And the Backtime Field Buffers,” Eight added.

 

Five and Eight took out their sonic screwdrivers and started to adjust the settings for scanning.

 

“What have you boys got there?” One asked.

 

“Sonic screwdriver,” Five said distractedly.

 

Eight looked up in realisation. “Oh, of course. You haven’t used one yet have you?”

 

“No, that’s right,” Five said. “You start using it in your next body. It’s like a scientific Swiss Army Knife. You’re going to love it.”

 

“Hmm. I look forward to it.”

 

They held up their sonics and started scanning the portal.

 

“It’s a Time Fissure alright,” Five said.

 

“Immensely powerful. Only something like a Stellar Manipulator could generate this,” Eight said.

 

“It seems to have two other openings, branching in time like a ‘Y’,” Five noted. “I wonder where they go?”

 

“Or come from?” One said philosophically. “I mean, they brought us here… wherever here is,” he said, looking around.

 

“Some kind of art gallery,” Five ventured.

 

“Kind of obvious when there are paintings on the walls,” Eight said sarcastically.

 

“Holographic paintings though,” One observed. “And someone or something has broken the glass from the painting side.”

 

“Dorian Grey?” Eight quipped.

 

Five was continuing to scan the room with his sonic. “Hold on. The electrical cabling is carrying an alternating current at 50 Hertz, with a potential difference of 240 Volts.”

 

“Hmmm. Great Britain on Earth in the late twentieth, early twenty first century used that configuration,” One remembered.

 

“But they shouldn’t have holographic paintings in that era,” Five said.

 

Eight went over to an open toolbox on the floor, and rummaged through it. “Mmm. Stanley screwdriver, Draper spanner set. Ooh, Bosch cordless drill, the forerunner of a sonic screwdriver.”

 

“Well, we seem to be right about the time and place then,” Five said.

 

“I think that maybe we should see if we can find someone, and ask them if they know what’s going on. Mmm?” One said.

 

They climbed the couple of steps through the doorway, and went through to the next room, which had display cases containing a variety of curiosities. A Pufferfish, a bust of Albert Einstein, and various porcelain vases.

 

“Oh look,” Eight said. “Some old friends of ours.” He was standing in front of a painting of an ancient sailing vessel with failing Cybermen on it.

 

They carried on through another doorway into a room of arched columns, with empty pedestals, and stone dust on the floor. Five stooped down and scooped up a handful of the dust.

 

“It looks like whatever statues were on these pedestals have been pulverised to dust,” he stated.

 

“But who would perpetrate such an act of vandalism?” One asked, looking around at the empty pedestals.

 

“I don’t know… A seriously depressed artist. A seriously disturbed art critic,” Eight said with a smile.

 

One had walked on further, and climbed the steps into the next room. “Whoever did this then, may have been a spurned suitor, or a jilted lover.”

 

The other two went through to join him and turned to look at the other side of the door. There was a painting on the door of a man in Elizabethan costume, with wild, sticky up hair. The woman he was standing next to, had a hole where her face used to be.

 

“Mmm, I see waht you mean,” Five said. He picked up the bit of the canvas of the floor, and held it up by the hole. “Is that Elizabeth Tudor, Good Queen Bess?”

 

“I do believe you’re right my boy,” One said.

 

“But she was the virgin queen, she never married… So who’s the guy in need of a comb?” Eight asked.

 

Five and Eight stood for a while pondering the mystery, whilst One wandered over to the elevator door, and pushed the button on the polished metal panel. Nothing happened.

 

“Boys, do your Swiss Army Knife devices work on door mechanisms?” One asked.

 

“Some of them,” Five said.

 

“Not so good on wood though,” Eight told him.

 

They adjusted their ‘Swiss Army Knife devices’ and aimed them at the panel. They made whistling, warbling noises, but the door remained still. They adjusted the settings, and scanned the controls.

 

“Ah, remote security lock down,” Five said.

 

“Oh, right,” Eight said. “So if this is the only way out, then we’re staying in.”

  
“Mmmm. We could always see where the time fissure leads to,” One suggested with a raised chin as he held his lapels.

 

Five and Eight looked at each other and raised their eyebrows. “He’s got a point,” Five said.

 

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as I always say,” Eight said with a smile.

 

“I don’t think you’ve always said that,” One corrected him. “I don’t remember using that phrase before.”

 

“Actually, now you come to mention it,” Five said.

  
Eight rolled his eyes. “Look, if we compare notes on eight hundred plus years of things we’ve said and not said… Well, it’s going to be a very long discussion.” He walked past One, and headed back to the room with the time fissure.

 

They stood under the swirling portal, and linked arms in a triangle.

 

“If we keep together, we should travel down the same portal and end up in the same place,” Eight said.

 

“Yes, we know all that,” One said irritably. “Let’s get on with it. Ready? One… Two… Three.”

  
They bent their knees, and jumped up together. The time fissure gently continued their jump, and they rose into the vortex.


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Doctors meet up, and boy, are they a dysfunctional family.

** Chapter 6 **

 

  


The second Doctor picked himself up out of the undergrowth and smoothed down his black coat. He looked up at the portal, and then around the clearing.

 

“So where have I ended up then?” He asked, as a floppy brown hat dropped on his head. “What the?...”

 

He moved out of the way as long, woollen scarf started to coil itself into a conical pyramid before a man fell out of the portal and landed on it. “Hah! Excellent. If you’re thinking of falling any distance, always make sure you’re wearing a long scarf.”

 

The man with a mop of curly hair wore a grey coat, impossibly long scarf, and an enormous smile. He stood up and looked at the second Doctor with his large round, friendly eyes. “Oh, it’s you… Mmm, something odd going on here if we are coexisting in the same time line.”

  
“Coexisting? Does that mean that you’re a future me?” Two asked.

 

“Yes,” the fourth Doctor said distractedly. “This is my fourth body… Where am I? The last thing I remember is Sarah Jane and myself having a glass of wine with this affable fellow called Solon.”

 

“Oh dear. I haven’t turned into a lush in my fourth body have I?” Two asked him with a frown.

 

“What? No, of course not. I suspect that it may have been a vintage Chateau Mickey Finn. Sarah Jane’s probably in danger, I need to get back.”

 

“Yes, and I need to continue my transmat journey to the Moon.”

 

“Who are you travelling with at the moment?” Four asked him.

 

“Zoe and Jamie,” Two replied.

 

“Ah, right. So, is that the Ice Warrior incident in the late twenty first century?”

 

“Yes, that’s the one. I need to destroy the homing device that is leading the invasion fleet to the moon.”

 

As they were talking, they heard a voice coming from above them.

 

“Look out Peri, incoming Doctor.” A man with fair, curly hair, dressed as a clown, dropped into the undergrowth and pitched forward onto his hands and knees. He stood up and brushed the leaf litter off his yellow trousers, before rubbing his hands together.

 

“Peri? Did you get teleported to the wrong place as well? I think the twins calculations that I applied to the revitalising modulator may have been off a bit.”

 

Two and Four looked at each other with expressions of amused disbelief, before looking back at the man wearing a red, patchwork coat.

 

“Oh dear, don’t tell me that’s one of my future incarnations,” Two said.

 

“If it is, then he’s in my future too. And if he is, it looks like he fell out of the fashion tree and missed all the good taste branches on the way down,” Four said with a grin.

 

Two looked him up and down. “Whereas you only hit a couple I suppose.”

 

“What? Oh, the scarf. That’s not a fashion accessory, it’s an essential survival tool. Douglas Adams was nearly right when he said it was a towel. What he meant to say was a scarf.”

 

“A towel?” Two said with a frown.

 

“Oh, that’s right you haven’t read the ‘Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy’ yet. A long scarf is just about the most massively useful thing any interstellar traveller can wear. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the frozen landscape of Woman Wept." He put his arm around Two's shoulders and looked off into the distance, spreading his arm in front of him to emphasise the vista he was imagining. "You can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Extans Superior, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep wrapped in it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Shokesh; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of Oswald's Hypnotic Eye; you can wave your scarf in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you can dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. Oh, and you can use it to break a fall out of a swirling vortex.”

 

The fair haired man with bad fashion sense, heard them talking and turned around. “Oh, hello. Have you seen a young, American w…”

 

He stopped in mid sentence and frowned at the two Doctors. “It’s you, isn’t it? The pair of you.”

 

“Yes, I’m me,” Two said helpfully.

 

“And I’m me as well,” Four said. “Oh, and I was him… once.”

 

“Yes, I know. I remember. Still wearing the long scarf then I see. And have you still got the recorder?” The Sixth Doctor said.

 

Two sheepishly reached into his coat pocket, took out his descant recorder, and gave it a toot.

 

“Hmm, thought so. Right then, do either of you know where we are or how we got here?”

 

“Er, no. We’d only just got over the introductions when you dropped in,” Two said.

 

“Introductions?” Six said with a puzzled expression. They were the Doctor, wasn’t that obvious?

 

“Yes. It’s always polite to make the introductions. I mean, we know who we are, but which version,” Four said. “He’s in my second body, I’m in my fourth…” He raised his hat in greeting. “And you are?”

 

Six rolled his eyes impatiently. “I’m in my sixth body. Now I need to find a way to get back to Peri.”

 

“Going to miss the matinee performance are you?” Two asked.

 

“What?” Six said with a frown.

 

“Well, wearing that coat, I thought you were in the Lloyd-Webber production of ‘Joseph’,” Two said with a mischievous grin.

  
“No, I have to stop Azmael from making a big mistake.” He thought about how his old tutor had just tried to blow him up in a sealed room. “Well, a bigger mistake at least.”

 

“Azmael, the PrydonianAcademy tutor?” Two asked. “How is the old devil?”

 

“He’s in big trouble, and I need to help him.”

 

“Right, it sounds like we all need to be back where we came from,” Four said, looking around at the forest. “Oak, Ash, Couch Grass, Buttercups.”

 

Two tilted his head to one side. “Blackbird, Crow… We’re on Earth, Great Britain I’d venture.”

 

Six sniffed the air. “Hints of wood smoke on the air. Pre-industrial I would guess as I can’t discern any petrochemicals, and I don’t see any aircraft contrails.”

 

Of course! Air analysis would give them a good indication of the era. All three reached into their coat pockets and produced their sonic screwdrivers.

  
They wandered around the clearing, scanning the air, the ground, and the vegetation.

 

“Over here, quickly,” Two called out.

 

“What have you found?” Four asked as they approached him.

 

“This undergrowth is just springing back from being disturbed and trampled.”

 

“Hmm. A couple of possibilities come to mind,” Six mused. “Someone came here with their equipment, opened the Time Fissure and then left, or this is the other end of the Time Fissure, and someone has travelled through it before us.”

 

“Either way, that person may have a better idea of what’s going on than we do,” Four said.

 

“So, are we agreed that we should follow whoever it is who has come through here?” Two asked.

  
Four and Six looked at each other, nodded, and looked back at Two. “Agreed,” they said together and set off in the direction of the Tower of London.

 

 

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 

 

“We really need to get out of here,” Nine told them nervously.

 

“But where do we go? We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Three said.

 

“How did you get here before?” Seven asked Nine.

 

“I told you, I don’t remember. TARDIS I think, but I haven’t a clue where I parked it. I do remember a long walk though.”

 

No more. He heard the echo of a memory from that awful day.

 

“Then it would seem our only option is to go back through the Time Fissure and see where we end up,” Seven said.

 

“But that could be anywhere, anywhen,” Three said.

 

“Well, that’s gotta be better than sitting on top of a machine that can obliterate all the seventeen suns of the Kasterborous constellation,” Nine said. “Come on, link arms and we’ll jump up into the fissure.”

 

Seven looked between them as they had linked arms. “Just click your heels together three times, and we’ll be off to see the wizard.”

 

“Yes, very amusing,” Three said sarcastically. “Let’s just go.”

 

“One, two, three,” they said together, bent their knees, and jumped into the vortex.

 

“I hate travelling through a vortex without a capsule,” Nine said as they slowly rotated.

 

“Something green approaching,” Seven alerted them.

 

“Return your seats to the upright position and fasten your seatbelts,” Nine joked.

 

“Brace for impact,” Three said before they dropped out of the vortex.

 

Thud, thud, thud. Two pairs of shoes and a pair of boots landed in the grassy undergrowth of a clearing in a forest.

 

“Now that’s more like it,” Nine said. “Much better than that dusty old barn. And not a weapon of mass destruction in sight.”

 

“Yes, but why are we in the middle of a forest?” Three asked. “I can understand being in the barn with the Moment, but here…”

 

Seven looked up at the portal. “Well, maybe whoever created this wanted it to be hidden from prying eyes.”

 

“Hmm, good point,” Nine said. He walked across the clearing and crouched down. “It looks like there’s been a fair bit of foot traffic through here recently.”

 

“So it looks like the party’s that way,” Seven said, walking past them and following in the footsteps of those who had gone before. In fact, they were following in the footsteps of three people who were just ahead of them through the trees.

 

“Y’know, I’m sure I can hear someone behind us,” Eight said to the Doctors ahead of him.

 

One turned to face him, leaning on his improvised staff that he’d fashioned from the straightest branch he could find in the undergrowth. “Really? Hmm… Maybe it would be prudent to get off the path and let them pass.”

 

“What about that large oak up ahead?” Five suggested.

 

“Good idea. Come on, their should be enough cover for us to move around the tree as they go past,” Eight said as he moved forwards.

 

They stood with their backs to the huge old oak tree, and listened to the approaching group of travellers.

 

“Y’know, it’s difficult to talk to people about things you’ve experienced when they already know what you’re going to say,” a man with a northern accent said.

 

“Yes. And of course, you two can’t tell me about things I haven’t done yet,” a rather cultured voice said. The three Doctors behind the tree frowned at each other as they listened to the approaching conversation.

 

“Not without the risk of causing a paradox,” a man with a slight lisp said. “It’s bad enough that the three of us are existing in the same time line.”

 

One and Five were alarmed when Eight stepped from behind the tree and confronted the travellers.

 

“And with six of us, its got even worse. I knew I recognised two of those voices,” Eight said, standing on the track in front of them with his fists on his hips.

 

“And who might you be?” A man with curly, grey hair and the cultured voice asked.

 

“That’s your eighth incarnation,” The northern man in black said, and then realised that none of them would know him. "I'm your ninth incarnation by the way."

 

“Oh, and your fifth,” the man with the lisp said, as the fifth Doctor came from behind the tree.

 

“And the original,” One chuckled as he emerged from his hiding place. “The one, but not the only.”

 

“So what’s going on then, does anyone know why we are here?” Five asked. “Wherever here is.”

 

“Not a clue,” Nine said. “I take it you came through the Time Fissure as well.”

 

“Yes, yes. And I assume you were in some sort of teleportation process when you were hijacked,” One said.

 

“Yes, that’s right. We ended up on Gallifrey,” Three told them. “Where did you end up?”

 

“Not sure,” Eight replied. “Late twentieth, early twenty first century Earth. In an art gallery that had holographic paintings.”

 

“Really? That’s interesting. Maybe it was some sort of covert store of alien artefacts,” Seven ventured.

 

“Yes, my boy. Yes, that’s not a bad theory,” One said. “But all this chit-chat isn’t getting us any nearer to finding out why we are in the middle of a forest.”

 

“We were following the yellow brick road to find the wizard,” Seven quipped.

 

“The wonderful wizard of the Time Fissure,” Eight said. “Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as Oz, does it.”

 

“Well, in the absence of any other plan, I suggest we continue onward and see what we find,” Three advised.

  
The group looked around at each other with shrugs and nods, and agreed to press on. They chatted about their previous lives, always having to be cautious about what they could give away without causing a paradox.

 

The first Doctor was at a particular disadvantage, as everyone else was from his future. He started to do some simple maths. “So, if you’re my ninth body,” he said to Nine. “Then we seem to be missing numbers two, four and six,” he calculated.

 

“I wonder if they are the the people we were originally following?” Five said.

 

“Possibly,” Three said. “I think we’ll be finding out soon. There’s a castle over there in the distance.”

  
“That looks like it might be our destination then,” Seven said, and they set off with renewed vigour.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The old Warrior Doctor disappears from the Black Archive, so Ten, Eleven, and Clara go to find him. But as usual, the TARDIS knows better.

** Chapter 7 **

  


 

Clara left her Doctor, and his previous version with the great hair, and went to introduce herself to the old man who used to be them both. “Hello.”

 

“Hello,” he said with a smile.

 

“I'm Clara. We haven't really met yet.”

 

“I look forward to it,” he said with some amusement. “Is there a problem?” He asked. He could sense that something was troubling this young lady.

 

“The Doctor,” she started, and then realised that he was the Doctor. “My... my Doctor, he's always talking about the day he did it. The day he wiped out the Time Lords to stop the war.”

 

“One would,” he agreed.

 

“You wouldn't. Because you haven't done it yet. It's still in your future.”

 

Ooh, she was feisty. So he still chose his companions well in the future. “You're very sure of yourself.”

 

“He regrets it. I see it in his eyes every day. He'd do anything to change it.”

 

“Including saving all these people. How many worlds has his regret saved, do you think? Look over there. Humans and Zygons working together in peace.” He was curious as to how she knew he was a predecessor. “How did you know?”

 

“Your eyes. You're so much younger,” she told him. Those eyes hadn’t seen the destruction of an entire planet.

 

“Then, all things considered, it's time I grew up.” He looked past her.” I've seen all I needed... The moment has come… I'm ready,” he said to the air behind her.

 

“I know you are,” Bad Wolf agreed.

 

Clara looked over her shoulder. “Who's there? Who were you talking to?” When she looked back at the old warrior, the chair was empty. “What the…”

 

“Er, Doctor?” She called out.

 

Sandshoes and Chinny both said “Yes.”

 

Clara stopped and looked between them with a puzzled expression. “OK… The old guy, who’s the younger guy has disappeared.”

 

“What?!” They said together. “Where could he go?” The Tenth Doctor asked.

 

“He seemed to be talking to someone behind me and I turned to look. When I looked back, he’d gone.”

 

“What did he say?” Her Doctor asked her, looking from under his floppy fringe.

 

“Er, We were talking, and he said the moment had come and he was ready,” she recalled.

 

The two Doctors looked at each other knowingly. “The Moment,” Ten said. “It must have orchestrated all this… We have to go and find him, be there for him.”

 

“Yes, you’re right. Come on Clara, we’re leaving. My TARDIS is outside the National Gallery, can you give us a lift?” Eleven asked. Ten’s TARDIS was parked in the courtyard of the Tower of London above them.

 

They were confident that Kate Stewart would not detonate the nuclear warhead twenty feet below them. Not because the Human - Zygon negotiations were going so well, but mainly because they had disabled all the microphone inputs to the computer so that it was effectively 'deaf' and so couldn't hear any verbal commands. They had also disabled the keyboards, just in case someone tried to enter the countdown command manually.

 

Over the centuries, the Doctor had learned that there was more than one way to save a civilisation. They left the Black Archive, (much to the surprise of Mr. Atkins the security guard, as he was sure he had only let the young lady in earlier) and made their way to Ten’s TARDIS, which had now settled down, and was showing his ‘grunge’ interior.

 

“Right then, first stop National Gallery, and then on to Gallifrey,” Ten said, operating the console with his usual flourish.

 

“You’re still travelling alone then?” Eleven asked, knowing full well that he would be on his own now until his next regeneration. It was just a way of striking up a conversation.

 

“Yeah. After Rose, y’know… and then Donna. I couldn’t face losing anyone else,” he said quietly, concentrating on the console so that they couldn’t see the tears stinging his eyes.

 

He sniffed and looked up, a false smile on his lips. “But I see you’re carrying on the tradition.” He waggled his eyebrows at Clara.

 

Eleven looked at Clara and smiled. “What, Clara? Yes, she’s very special this one, different to other companions we’ve had.”

 

“Really?” Ten said, and realised that his future self would say no more on the subject. He then remembered a diary and a sonic screwdriver from long ago. “Do you ever see River?”

 

“Now and again, our time lines cross now and then.” He hesitated before continuing. “We got married.”

 

Ten looked up suddenly. “Hah! You’re a bit of a dark horse aren’t you,” he said with a grin. “I look forward to that one.” He waggled his eyebrows at Clara again. “It’s always the quiet ones.”

 

“I don’t think you two could ever be considered quiet,” she said with a smile.

 

“Wait a minute though, that means you’re a bigamist, because I’m married to Queen Elizabeth,” he said as he landed the TARDIS.

 

“Ah, alternate time line so it doesn’t count. We were in Area 52, inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, all of history was happening at the same time, all a bit wibbly wobbly. I exchanged vows with River, and bang, everything was back to normal.”

 

They walked down the ramp and out of the door for Eleven and Clara to get in their own TARDIS, except that it wasn’t there. Neither was the National Gallery.

 

“My Love. You have returned as promised. Nicholas Hilliard is here to start our wedding portrait,” a beaming Elizabeth said.

 

“What?!” Ten said, realising that the TARDIS had brought them back to 1562.

 

“And then we can have a wedding feast, before we retire to our bed chamber where we can consummate our marriage,” she said coyly as she rubbed her body against him and stroked his tight suit.

 

“What?!”

 

Eleven was grinning like a Cheshire cat, and Clara had a fit of giggles. Elizabeth hugged Ten’s arm and literally dragged him into the castle.

 

“But we have to…” he protested.

 

“Have a painting that Clara and myself can look at in the Under Gallery,” Eleven finished for him.

 

Ten gave him a look that would make a Dalek flinch, and Clara continued to giggle. “Now run along and get changed, there’s a good boy,” she said with a wink.

 

“Once the artist has got the details for the painting, we can set off to Gallifrey,” Eleven told her.

 

“Spoilsport,” Clara said, giving him her impish smile. “I don’t think Elizabeth will thank you for spiriting away her husband on their wedding night.” She looked around the castle courtyard, appreciating the medieval architecture, when through the arched gateway, she saw a trio of strangely dressed men approaching.

 

“It looks like the Queen has engaged a troupe of mummers for some entertainment,” Clara observed.

 

Eleven looked through the gateway and frowned. “Oh no, not them. What are they doing here?”

 

“You know them?” Clara asked in surprise.

 

“Know them? I am them.”

 

“I say there,” the man with the pudding basin haircut called out. “I wonder if you could help us. We are looking for a magician or alchemist who would be able to create swirling illusions in the air.”

 

“If you mean the Time Fissure over in the woods, then you’ve missed him. Is that how you lot got here?” Eleven said as they approached.

 

They stopped in their tracks and frowned. “You know us?” The man wearing a long scarf and floppy hat said.

 

“Yes, yes. Mop Top there is my second body, you with the scarf are my fourth, and Coco is my sixth.”

 

“Coco?” Six said indignantly.

 

Two looked him up and down and laughed. “Coco the Clown. Yes, very good.”

 

“Hello my dear,” Four said to Clara, holding out his hand and raising his hat. “We are the Doctor.”

 

Clara shook his hand. “Clara, and this is you in your eleventh body,” she said, pointing at Eleven with her thumb.

 

“Very pleased to meet you,” he said with a big smile.

 

“Yes, alright, enough of that,” Six said rudely. “Maybe you could tell us what the devil is going on.”

 

“Well, me, Clara, and Sandshoes are supposed to be here. I think you lot have got caught up in this by accident,” Eleven said.

 

“Sandshoes?” Two asked.

 

“That’s his nickname for your tenth body,” Clara told them.

 

“Talking of Sandshoes, I bet he’s ready for his portrait by now,” Eleven said. “Come on everybody, I’ll introduce you to Queen Elizabeth the First and her new husband.”

 

“Husband? Elizabeth Tudor didn’t have a husband,” Two said.

  
“She does now,” Eleven said over his shoulder as they walked into the castle.

 

“Wine?” A servant asked at the door, carrying a silver tray with silver goblets on it.

 

“That’ll be him you want,” Two said pointing over his shoulder at Six with his thumb. “He hasn’t stopped whining since we got here.”

 

“No, wine sire. Compliments of the Queen,” the servant explained.

 

“I don’t whine!” Six protested.

 

“Yes you do,” Two, Four and Eleven said together.

 

Six looked hurt by their accusation. “I just don’t tolerate fools gladly.”

 

Four reached past them. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said taking one of the goblets off the tray.

 

“Go easy there old chap, remember how you got here,” Two cautioned

 

Four gave him an annoyed look. “I told you, I wasn’t drunk. Solon spiked my drink.”

 

Eleven raised his eyebrows as he sipped the fruity red wine. “Solon, I remember him. Was that when you were on Karn?”

 

“Yes, it was.”

 

He thought about how much he could tell him. “Can’t tell you why, but you’re right, he did spike your drink.”

 

Four looked at Two with a triumphant smile. “See, told you so.”

 

They walked down the hallway towards the drawing room, which would literally become the ‘drawing room’.

 

There were courtesans and serving staff milling about in the room who stopped and looked at the strangers in even stranger clothing as they entered.

 

A man in black doublet, breeches, cloak and the usual white ruff, walked towards them. “I take it from your attire, that you are friends of the groom.”

 

“Er, yes. Sort of, yes,” Eleven said.

 

“Ah, good. Francis Walsingham at your service,” he said with a bow. “I am charged with the safety of the Queen, and I am… surprised by this whirlwind romance and marriage.”

 

“Not as surprised as the groom, I’ll wager,” Four said with his charming grin.

 

“Yes, quite,” Walsingham said, not quite sure how to respond to Four’s quip. “I mean, there have been proposals from Philip, King of Spain; Charles, Archduke of Austria, not to mention her childhood sweetheart Robert Dudley now that his wife has died. And yet, she chooses this mysterious stranger of whom we know nothing.”

 

“Ah, yes, I can see where you’re coming from,” Eleven said. “Rest assured Sir Francis, his credentials are impressive. He is a Lord of Gallifrey…”

 

“Former Lord President of Gallifrey,” Six added.

 

“A man of contrasts,” Two said. “Courageous and brave, and yet reserved and thoughtful.”

 

“Always keen to avoid conflict,” Four added.

 

“But no coward,” Two declared.

 

“He never gives up on people,” Six said.

 

“And he never gives in to tyranny or oppression,” Four finished.

 

“A nobleman then?” Walsingham said.

 

“A very noble man,” Clara said looking around at the Doctors around her. “I trust him with my life.”

 

Three of the Doctors looked suitably humbled and embarrassed by her declaration. Her Doctor however, the latest version, looked full of remorse and guilt. Billions of Gallifreyans had trusted him with their lives, and they were wrong to. He had failed them because he had chosen to act against those who would massacre Gallifreyan civilisation, and they had died in the process.

 

Clara saw the look in his eyes and reached out to gently squeeze his upper arm. “Hey, are you alright? I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just being honest.”

 

“No, it’s alright. I was just thinking about all the people over the centuries who have trusted me with their lives.”

 

Before they could follow that thought through, an officious looking man in deep red clothing, a cloak edged with ermine, and wearing a black hat, entered the room and spoke. “My lords, ladies, and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to present the bride, Queen Elizabeth, and her husband, Prince Consort Doctor.”

 

The Queen entered the room to applause, wearing a beautifully embroidered high necked gold dress. She was on the arm of her husband, who was wearing black clothing embroidered with gold, and a heavy gold chain around his neck, topped off with a ruff, which he was running his finger around as though it was choking him.

 

He rolled his eyes when he saw his earlier incarnations. “Oh no, what are that lot doin’ here?”

 

“They just dropped in to give their best wishes to the happy couple,” Eleven said with a cheeky smile.

 

“Is everything alright my Love?” Elizabeth asked with concern.

 

He patted her hand that was resting on his forearm and smiled. “It’s fine Elizabeth. Just some old friends of mine.” He pointed his finger at them. “One laugh, one giggle, one titter, and I’m out of here, paradox or no paradox,” he told them.

 

Clara walked over, went on to tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. “Ignore them. I for one think that Elizabethan dress is very… sexy.”

 

Ten raised his eyebrows. “Sexy?”

 

“Yeah, the ruff, and the… codpiece. It doesn’t get much sexier than that,” she told him with a sultry look in her eyes.

 

He worked his neck around in the ruff, and pulled down the bottom of his doublet. “Sexy huh… Yep, still got it.”

 

The officious man in the deep red robes, William Cecil, who was Secretary of State, ushered the happy couple over to an area by the window, where the Queen’s official artist Nicholas Hilliard was waiting. The Queen and Ten struck a pose that Eleven and Clara would see centuries later in the Under Gallery. Whilst Hilliard was making preliminary sketches with charcoal on the canvas, Ten spotted a group of travellers through the window who were approaching the castle from the edge of the forest.

 

“Oh no, not more of them. We’ll be able to start our own version of Facebook soon.”

 

“Eh?” Eleven went over to the window and recognised the remaining six Doctors approaching. “I don’t believe this.”

 

“Is there a problem?” Walsingham asked, ready to deploy his troops to protect the queen.

 

“No, no problem. Just more of the in-laws turning up,” Eleven said. He looked at Walsingham and smiled. “Every family has them. Y’know, the ones you don’t talk about or invite round for Christmas.”

 

“Ah, yes. The embarrassments as I call them,” Walsingham nodded knowingly. “Would you like me to detain them?”

 

“No, they’re harmless enough. You’d better send them in.”

  
Walsingham spoke quietly to one of his officers, who then left to escort the new arrivals in to the castle.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All the Doctors enjoy the wedding celebrations, and of course, there has to be a gate crasher.

** Chapter 8 **

  


 

The Moment appeared to be a small brass inlaid clockwork box, but appearances could be deceptive. The Doctor’s TARDIS appeared to be a blue wooden Police Box, but who would have thought that it was larger on the inside, and contained the power of a sun. And, like a TARDIS, the Moment was a living machine. A blend of mechanical, electronic and organic components.

 

The control interface of the Moment was a multitasking, parallel networked, neural processor, that was made deliberately complex so that it couldn’t be activated just on a whim. It was a failsafe mechanism that tested the resolve and the motives of the user so that the galaxy wasn't in danger just because they were having a bad day, or suffering from PMT.

 

So whilst it was testing the resolve of a weary old warrior, and making sure that he was right in his conviction that there was no other way, it also noted that the windows it had opened on his future had not only tangled in time through the days to come, but also through the days that had long since passed.

 

Inadvertently, all his former lives had been caught up in the Time Fissure when their bodies had been deconstructed into their composite atoms and eventually they had been brought together. The Moment realised that this had the potential to be a disaster, but also knew that unexpected, random events were the stuff of history and legend.

 

The weary old renegade warrior was certain that there was no other option, and up to this point he had been right. But his time line was in flux, and the future hadn’t been written yet. The future of Gallifrey was no longer solely in his hands, it was in all his hands.

 

The legend already existed, now it was time to write his history.

 

 

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 

 

All the Doctors (except one) were in the drawing room, supping wine and mingling with the courtesans, making up stories of how they knew the groom. One thing they could all agree on with confidence was his good character. He may have been a bit of a rebel,  but he always stood up for the ordinary man in the street, opposed those who would mistreat the ordinary man in the street, and he always tried to do the right thing.

 

The fifth, sixth, and eighth Doctors were enjoying the attentions of the young debutantes, who were hoping to snag a husband who was related to the Prince Consort, and so curry favour and influence in Elizabeth’s court.

 

Two, Three, Four, and Seven were attracting the more mature ladies of the court. Spinsters and widows who were looking for husbands to keep them comfortable in the years ahead.

 

The ninth Doctor was receiving no amorous attentions at all, as the ladies of the court thought that he was a common farm labourer. He was in no hurry to correct that misconception, as there was only one woman in his thoughts lately. A feisty blonde who had helped him come to terms with what he had done, and what he had become.

 

The first Doctor was enjoying the attentions of the senior ladies, who presumed he was an elderly uncle of the Prince Consort, and as such would be rich and influential. He managed to dodge out of the way, and made his way over to Six, who was having a discussion about the use of leeches in medicine with the court physician.

 

“Nice coat,” One said as he stood beside him and sipped his wine.

 

“Oh don’t you start. Everybody’s been giving me grief about this coat. Look, I’m having a pretty bad time of it at the moment, what with me still being in the first fifteen hours of a particularly bad regeneration.” He looked totally fed up and dejected.

 

“No dear boy, I mean it,” One said with a fatherly look of concern. “That coat represents the non-conformist rebel in me. It’s just a shame that it took me five regenerations to realise it.”

 

“Really? Non-conformist rebel?” Six smiled and wandered off to talk about being a non-conformist rebel with some poor, unsuspecting courtesan.

 

“That was very nice of you,” Five said in One’s ear.

 

“What, that little speech? I did actually mean it… well, most of it.” He looked Five up and down. “Mmm. Just wish I could say the same about your outfit.” He wandered off, leaving Five frowning at the space he had just occupied.

 

“So, is Ace still creating her explosives then?” Nine asked Seven.

 

“Yes, afraid so. Although I must admit, they have come in useful on occasion. Blowing holes in walls and doors is fine, I’ve just got to stop her from trying to use them on the living,” Seven replied.

 

“Is there something wrong with what I’m wearing?” Five had wandered over, and was looking troubled.

 

“Nothing that a gardener or a cook couldn’t sort out,” Seven said with a grin.

 

“Eh?”

 

“Oh leave him alone,” Nine said, defending his sensitive former self. “You should try wearing this jumper. People either think I’m a navvy, a submariner, or a farm labourer.”

 

“A submariner?” Eight said from behind him. “The Elizabethans don’t have submarines.”

 

“No, this was the nineteen forties… A long story.”

 

“What do you have to do to get a drink around here?” A gruff Scottish voice said from the door.

 

Everyone looked to see a tall man with greying hair and gaunt face, holding open the doors with his arms held wide. He was wearing a black, three quarter length coat with red silk lining, an open necked white shirt, black waistcoat, black trousers, and black boots.

 

He walked across the room towards one of the servants who was holding a tray of goblets. “I mean, there I was, minding my own business, when I was whisked away by a swirling vortex… thing,” he said, twirling his arm above his head. He reached the servant and took a goblet of wine, swigging a mouthful before continuing.

 

“Oh, hello Clara. Anyway, it drops me in a forest in the middle of nowhere. No signposts, no policeman to ask for directions, so I have to follow my instincts, and where do I end up? At the Adam’s Family reunion.”

 

“Do, do I know you?” Clara asked, looking intently at the new arrival.

 

The man returned her look. “Ah, yes and no,” he said cryptically. “Yes you know me… No, you don’t know this face.”

 

“Which one are you then,” Eleven asked, anticipating the answer.

 

“I’m the thirteenth Doctor, unless you’re superstitious, then I’m the twelfth if you exclude an absent friend,” he said, raising his goblet in a salute to the absent warrior.

 

“But you’re Scottish!” Nine said. “I thought bein’ northern was bad enough, but… Scottish?”

 

“I know. It was borrowed Artron energy. I suspect it might be the Sisterhood of Karn getting their own back,” Twelve said.

 

“Oh, when I said they were the keepers of the flame of utter boredom,” Eight said. Twelve raised his goblet again and nodded in agreement.

 

“You said that to the Sisterhood?” Four said in awe. “I seem to have taken bravery, or foolhardiness to new heights in my later regenerations.”

 

“So, what’s the occasion then?” Twelve asked, looking around the room.

 

“Marriage celebration,” Five said. “Queen Elizabeth the First, and Doctor the Tenth.”

 

Twelve spluttered his wine back into the goblet as he nearly choked. “I married her? That certainly explains a lot. I suppose I should be grateful it was my head she wanted to chop off and not something else.”

 

As Clara drifted away and mingled with the guests, Eleven went to talk to his successor. “Does Clara continue to travel with you when I change?”

 

“Come on, you know the rules,” Twelve told him.

 

“What, like the rule that we can’t all coexist in the same time frame?”

 

Twelve raised his eyebrows and momentarily tipped his head to one side. “Good point... It was hard for her at first, she took it badly. What do you expect, I ended up as a Scotsman,” he said with a smirk. “But she came around, and now she’s fine with it.”

  
“Hmm, thank you,” Eleven said, thinking about how he could help his friend to come to terms with his future regeneration.

 

A number of people were standing by Nicholas Hilliard, watching him sketch the newlyweds onto the canvas. The fourth Doctor leaned over and inspected his work. “That’s very good. It’s been ages since I sketched with charcoal.”

 

“You are an artist?” Hilliard asked in surprise.

 

“Oh yes, I’ve sketched and painted with the best,” he said as he sipped his wine. “I remember sitting on the veranda with Leonardo as he painted that young lady... What was her name? Lisa, yes that was it.”

 

Hilliard turned away from his sketching. “You’ve worked with the great Leonardo da Vinci? You don’t look old enough.”

 

“Ah, well, yes. I age well. Good genes you see.”

 

Hilliard shook his head and went back to his sketching. It was obvious that he thought this odd man in the long scarf was teasing him.

 

“Look, can you stop distracting the artist,” Ten said. “This is taking too long as it is.”

 

“Be patient my Love. I know you are eager to get to our bed chamber, but there is the feast first, and that is being prepared whilst Nicholas paints,” Elizabeth said.

 

There was some tittering from the assembled guests, and Ten scoured the faces, trying to see if it was any of his lot. He was ready to bail out at the drop of a laugh.

 

Hilliard had prepared his paints, and started to paint Ten's head. "His hair doth look as though he hath been dragged through a thicket backwards," he muttered as he applied strokes of brown paint to the canvas.

 

“I’ll tell you what old chap,” Three said. “Why don’t we all grab a parchment and stick of charcoal, and we can each do a detail for Nicholas here.”

 

“What a good idea,” Two said. “I’ll do the detail on the chain around his neck.”

 

“With her majesty’s permission, I would do the detail on her bodice,” Eight said gallantly.

 

The queen smiled and nodded her approval. “I like him,” she whispered to Ten.

 

“Yeah… Thought you might.”

 

“Six, with the state you’re in at the moment, why don’t you do the background. It doesn’t take a lot of patience or concentration,” Four suggested.

 

Six didn’t argue, because he knew Four was right. With Eleven and Clara watching, Doctors one through nine picked a part of the scene and started producing incredibly detailed sketches that, like a jigsaw, Hilliard would be able to finish the painting from. They were so engrossed in their sketching, that at first they failed to notice that everyone in the room was standing still. So still that they could have been waxwork statues.

 

“There, finished,” Four said.

 

“Just the last few strokes… Done!” Nine declared.

 

“And me.”

 

“Me too.”

 

“Ooh, I like the detail you worked into that.”

 

All the Doctors completed their sketches and were admiring each others work, when they realised the room was very quiet.

 

“What’s goin’ on, why is everybody frozen?” Nine asked.

  
“They are frozen in a moment of time,” a woman said from behind them.

 

That voice! Nine recognised that voice. The accent may have been more refined, but it was her. He turned around to see Rose standing there, smiling at him.

 

“Rose!” He called out, as he rushed forward and hugged her. “Where have you been? How did you get here? Where’s Jack?” He fired questions at her, before holding her shoulders at arms length and looking her up and down. “And WHAT are you wearing?”

 

She was dressed like a pauper, with a tattered white dress, dark tights with holes in them, scruffy boots, and a beige coloured sleeveless jacket. Her blonde hair was wild and dishevelled.

 

“Ah, you’re the one then. I’m not who you think I am,” she said, as her eyes flashed with a golden light. She addressed all of the Doctors. “Gallifrey is in peril, and although your arrival here was an accident, it was also a necessity. There is one of you who is not here, a Doctor who is in such depths of despair that he is about to commit an act that they regret,” she said, nodding toward Nine and Twelve.

 

She walked over to where the statues of Ten and Eleven were standing. “Soon, these two will find him, and offer their support so that he does not bear the burden on his own.” She stopped in front of Clara and smiled. “This young, incredible woman reminds this man of who he really is.” She stood in front of Eleven and stroked his cheek, looking deep into his eyes. “When this happens, you will hear his thoughts, and you will come to his aid. For some of you, it will be in your future; for the others, it will already have happened.”

  
“So, if you’re not Rose Tyler, who are you?” Nine asked.

 

“I am the Moment, and your moment will come, all of you.”

 

Nine detailed sketches floated to the floor to gasps of surprise and startled screams.

 

Sir Francis Walsingham drew his sword and rushed to stand in front of the Queen and Prince Consort. “Protect the Queen,” he called out to his men, as they drew their swords and formed a protective cordon around them.

 

"What witchcraft is this?" Lord Cecil demanded.

 

“Where did they go?” Clara asked, gripping Eleven’s arm.

 

“I should imagine that the Moment has sent them back where they belong.” He looked worriedly over at Ten. “It’s started, the time has come.”

 

Ten nodded and turned to his new bride. “Elizabeth, my people are under attack from a terrible foe, and the old man that you met earlier is about to make a decision that no one should have to make on their own.”

 

Elizabeth knew that when you were a ruler, that the needs of the state came ahead of your own personal needs and desires. “Then you must go my Love, be with your comrade and give him your support.”

 

“Really? Oh, Elizabeth, you really are a most remarkable woman.” He took her face gently in his hands and kissed her lovingly on the lips. “Farewell my Love,” he said, and ran out of the room with Eleven and Clara.

  
Elizabeth wiped a tear from her cheek with an embroidered silk handkerchief. “God speed, gentle husband,” she said quietly.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life goes on for Queen Elizabeth, without her beloved Doctor. Meanwhile, Ten and Eleven go to find the old renegade. (I think we know how that's going to go)

** Chapter 9 **

  


Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England, sat on an ornately carved, upholstered chair, and gazed out of the window across the lawns and gardens towards the trees in the distance where earlier today, her love had asked her to marry him. She may have been a ruling monarch, but she was also a woman, and like any woman, she longed for her husband to return.

 

The wedding guests were standing about in an awkward silence, punctuated by the gentle murmuring of gossip and speculation. Elizabeth dragged her eyes away from the window, and searched the room for her trusted advisor. “Sir William,” she called to Lord Cecil. “I would be alone with my thoughts at this time.”

 

“Of course you're Majesty.” He quietly went around the room, speaking to the guests and explaining that it was time for them to leave. He advised them not to speak of today's events, lest they incur the queen’s displeasure. None of the guests wanted to do that, as they were rather fond of their heads, and were quite keen to keep them attached to their necks.

 

Elizabeth returned to her vigil, watching a pair of peacocks strutting across the lawn, vying for the attention of a hen. Gradually, that sixth sense which tells you that someone is behind you, watching you, made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

 

She glanced away from the window, and instinctively jumped when she saw a young, blonde pauper standing silently in the middle of the room. She was immediately on guard. How had this waif and stray gained access to the castle, and what did she want?

 

“Who are you? How did you get in here?”

 

“You need to make preparations for events that are yet to pass,” Bad Wolf said in answer.

 

“What do you mean, what do you know of these events?”

 

Bad Wolf’s eyes flashed with a golden light. “Everything. The Zygon threat seen today will manifest in the future. You have it within your power to warn the Doctor of the impending danger.”

 

“Those red demons! What must I do?”

 

No sooner had she finished speaking, when she was standing in the dungeon of the Tower of London, where the Zygons had been translated into the stasis cube paintings. Except now, there was another three dimensional painting, larger than the rest, that depicted a city of beautiful towers and spires that reached for the sky. That beauty was marred however, by the pall of smoke that hung in the air, smoke rising from the flames of an inferno that blazed in the heart of the metropolis.

 

“The painting is called GallifreyFalls,” Bad Wolf informed her.

 

“Is that where he has gone… my husband?” Elizabeth asked.

 

“Yes, he is there at the fall of Arcadia, Gallifrey’s second city,” Bad Wolf told her.

 

Elizabeth put her hand to her mouth to stifle a sob. “Does he… does he survive?” She was afraid to ask, because she was afraid of the answer.

 

“He survives,” Bad Wolf said simply.

 

“Oh, thank God! Then I will see him again, my Love. Lord be praised.”

 

Bad Wolf remained silent on that particular subject. The Moment would not provide information that would affect established events and cause a paradox. It knew that she would see the Doctor again in thirty seven years time, and she would be less than pleased to see him, and so Bad Wolf continued with her task.

 

Elizabeth found herself standing in front of the oak desk in her study back at the castle. “You really must give me warning when you do that, it makes one’s head spin.”

 

“I won’t be doing it again,” Bad Wolf said.

 

“Thank you.”

 

“No, I mean this is the final act that will complete the time line.”

 

“And what act is that?” Elizabeth asked, slightly miffed that an apparent pauper was telling the queen of England what to do.

 

“That is up to you, you're Majesty. How will you alert the Doctor to the danger contained within the paintings?”

 

Elizabeth thought about that. How would she get the Doctor, who was now her husband, to come to her here in what was his past?

 

“The paintings must be secured; hidden away so that the red demons cannot easily escape.” She moved around the desk and sat in the chair, reaching for a sheet of paper and placing it on the inlaid green leather desk top. “I will write a letter explaining the peril, and the painting of his home under attack will prove that it is I who is writing to him.”

 

She lifted the lid on the pot of ink, took one of the quills from the holder, and started to write.

 

'My dearest love, I hope the painting known as Gallifrey Falls will serve as proof that it is your Elizabeth who writes to you now. You will recall that you pledged yourself to the safety of my kingdom. In this capacity I have appointed you as curator of the Under Gallery, where deadly danger to England is locked away. Should any disturbance occur within its walls, it is my wish that you be summoned. God speed, gentle husband'.

 

She folded the paper, and sealed it with red wax, pressing the royal seal into it. The letter would be kept with the painting until the day it would be opened by her Love.

 

“There, it is do…” She looked up, and saw that she was alone in her study.

 

Over the following weeks, she busied herself with the affairs of state, to occupy her time whilst she waited for her husband to return. She planned the occupation of La Harve with help from the French Protestant Huguenot allies, in the hope of exchanging it for Calais which was lost four years previously.

 

She received a visit from a courier from the court of King Eric XIV of Sweden, who had sent a letter with an offer of marriage. Had she not already have been married, she may have considered the offer. But as it was she sent a polite refusal. She also received a similar proposal from Archduke Charles of Austria, which received a similar polite thanks, but no thanks.

 

As the weeks turned to months, her longing became disappointment when there was still no word from her love. There had been no sightings of him, and no travellers had heard stories of the Doctor. She knew that the mysterious woman who had been dressed as a pauper said he had survived the fall of Arcadia, but was he injured? Was he lying in a hospital or monastery, being tended to by nuns or monks?  

 

As the months turned into years, her disappointment became annoyance that he hadn’t sent word to her. Surely he could find some way to send a message. There were plenty of noblemen, traders, and pilgrims that came to London who could carry a letter to their queen and receive her favour. What if he had lost his memory in the fighting? He could be wandering the land as a lost soul, not knowing that he was Prince Consort.

 

As the years turned to decades, hope faded and her annoyance turned to sadness as she suspected that the mysterious pauper had lied to her, perhaps as an act of kindness so that she wouldn’t have to mourn her husband on her wedding day.

 

It was one evening in 1599, when Lord Bentham came to her and raved about William Shakespeare's latest play, Love’s Labours Won at the Globe. Apparently he had outdone himself with the stage effects. She decided that she would go and meet her favourite playwright the next day and request a private performance.

 

“Will!” Burbage called to the playwright, who was sitting on the stage.

 

“Will, you'll never believe it. She's here! She's turned up!” Kempe told him.

 

“We're the talk of the town. She heard about last night. She wants us to perform it again,” Burbage said.

 

“Who?” an attractive, dark skinned woman asked.

 

“Her Majesty. She's here.” As trumpets played a fanfare, Elizabeth was escorted onto the stage by two of her pikemen.

 

“Queen Elizabeth the First!” a familiar voice said.

 

“Doctor?” Elizabeth said in disbelief. He wasn’t dead, he wasn’t injured, and after thirty seven years, he hadn’t aged a day.

 

“What?” the Doctor said, apparently surprised to see her.

 

Betrayal! Her sadness turned to anger as she realised that her husband had abandoned her all those years ago. But it didn’t stop there. Her anger turned to fury, as she saw him with a young, attractive dark skinned woman. It was the worst kind of betrayal. He had abandoned her and taken up with another woman.

 

“My sworn enemy,” she declared, any love that she had felt for him evaporating in a fog of rage.

 

“What?” he repeated.

 

How dare he pretend that he didn’t know what she was angry about! “Off with his head!”

 

“What?” he said again.

 

“Never mind what, just run! See you, Will, and thanks,” the dark skinned woman said, tugging the Doctor’s arm and running off the stage.

 

Oh how he had hurt her. All those years of pining, yearning. “Stop that pernicious Doctor,” she commanded her pikemen.

 

Hell may hath no fury like a woman scorned, but the universe has no fury like a jilted queen.

 

 

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 

 

The tenth Doctor ran up the ramp to the console and activated the Time Rotor. “Okay, next stop National Gallery, and then on to Gallifrey.”

 

“Er, Doctor?” Clara said.

 

“Yes,” the two Doctors said together.

 

This was getting annoying now. “You Doctor,” she said, pointing at Ten. “Not my Doctor.”

 

“Yeah?” he enquired.

 

She looked him up and down. “Don’t you think you should get changed?”

 

“Eh?” He looked down at his Elizabethan outfit that Clara found so ‘sexy’. “Oh, right. Yeah, I suppose I should.” He made his way out of the console room, and headed for the Wardrobe.

 

Clara watched him go before turning to her Doctor. “Do you think you can stop him?”

 

“What, from changing out of that outfit? Why would I want to? He looks far too good in it,” Eleven said with a lopsided smile.

 

“No, not him. The old Doctor. Do you think you can stop him from destroying Gallifrey?”

 

Eleven took a deep breath and gave a sigh of resignation. “It’s already happened Clara. It’s a fixed point in time; we couldn’t change it even if we wanted to.”

 

“But it hasn’t happened,” she protested. “He hasn’t done it yet. There’s still time. You’re Time Lords for God’s sake… You have a time machine… What am I on about, you’ve got two of them.”

 

“Clara, do you know how you were born?” Eleven asked her.

 

“Of course, procreation is pretty standard stuff,” she said.

 

“A leaf!” he told her.

 

“What? I’ve heard it called birds and bees, but never a leaf.”

 

“A leaf blew into your father’s face, and he didn’t see the car coming. Your mother pulled him out of the path of the car, and they met.”

 

“Wha? How do you know that? Have you been stalking my family?” she asked suspiciously.

  
“What do you think would have happened to you if I had plucked that leaf out of the air?” He held her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Neither me or him want this to happen,” he said, nodding towards the doorway. “But it has happened, and maybe… just maybe we can share the burden of guilt and ease his suffering.”

 

"But..." She wanted to protest. She wanted him to be brilliant and come up with a way of changing things like he normally did. But she realised that even he had his limitations. He would still be with Rose Tyler if he didn't, and Donna Noble would still have her memories.

 

"Right then, that's better," Ten said as he walked into a subdued and ominously quiet control room. "What's up?"

 

"Nothing," Clara said sadly.

 

"I was just giving Clara a lesson in temporal physics, about non-linear progression of cause and effect," Eleven told him.

 

"Ah, she wants us to stop him," Ten said as he landed the TARDIS. "There we are, side by side. I'm slaving the TARDIS to yours so that we go together."

 

Eleven held out his hand. "Come on Clara, we have a date with destiny."

 

They walked reluctantly down the ramp and out of the door, to find their own TARDIS. Once inside, Eleven set the coordinates and activated the Time Rotor.

 

“Hmm, that was an unusually smooth ride to say we’ve just passed through a Time Lock and overridden the Backtime Field Buffers,” he said as he studied the monitor.

 

“We’re here then?”

 

“It would seem so, yes.”

 

Clara hurried down the ramp and opened the door. “I told you. He hasn't done it yet,” she said as she stepped outside.

 

“Go away now, all of you. This is for me,” the gruff voiced old man said.

 

Ten stepped out of his TARDIS and had the same realisation as Eleven. “These events should be time-locked. We shouldn't even be here.”

 

“So something let us through,” Eleven reasoned.

 

“Go back. Go back to your lives. Go and be the Doctor that I could never be. Make it worthwhile,” the numberless Doctor pleaded. He was so loathed and despised that he wasn’t even worth a number.

 

“All those years, burying you in my memory,” Ten confessed.

 

“Pretending you didn't exist. Keeping you a secret, even from myself,” Eleven continued.

 

“Pretending you weren't the Doctor, when you were the Doctor more than anybody else,” Ten said.

 

Eleven looked at the numberless Doctor. “You were the Doctor on the day it wasn't possible to get it right.”

 

“But this time…” Ten started.

 

“...You don't have to do it alone,” Eleven finished, as they put their hands on the big red button with his.

 

“Thank you,” the weary numberless Doctor said

 

Ten wanted to justify their actions. “What we do today is not out of fear or hatred. It is done because there is no other way.”

 

“And it is done in the name of the many lives we are failing to save,” Eleven said. They’d had days before when they couldn’t save everyone, but never where they couldn’t save anyone.

 

He glanced over at Clara, who was standing there, slowly shaking her head, silently imploring them not to do it.

 

“What?” Eleven asked her. “What is it? What?”

 

“Nothing,” she said in that typically human way of meaning ‘everything’.

 

“No, it's something. Tell me.”

 

“You told me you wiped out your own people. I just... I never pictured you doing it... that's all.”

 

Suddenly, the barn went dark. “What's happening?” Clara asked, looking around in a panic.

 

“Nothing,” the numberless Doctor told her. “It's a projection.”

 

They were standing in a war torn street in Arcadia; people were running past them in panic. Mothers were trying to protect their children. Fathers were trying to lead them to a place of safety, but no where was safe on Gallifrey that day.

 

She saw a child’s cuddly toy burning on the ground. Out of all the death and destruction around them, that sight affected her most. “These are the people you're going to burn?” Clara asked, tears starting to trickle down her cheeks.

 

“There isn't anything we can do,” Ten said in sad resignation.

 

“He's right. There isn't another way. There never was. Either I destroy my own people or let the universe burn,” Eleven told her.

 

“Look at you... The three of you. The warrior, the hero... and you,” she said, looking at the Numberless, Ten, and Eleven.

 

Eleven walked forward and stood in front of Clara. “And what am I?” he asked, more of himself than of Clara,

 

“Have you really forgotten?” She nearly cried the question.

 

“Yes,” he replied. “Maybe... yes.”

 

“We've got enough warriors. Any old idiot can be a hero,” she told him.

 

“Then what do I do?” he whispered, desperate for her to tell him he was wrong and that there was another way.

 

She closed her eyes in despair. He really was lost. When she opened her eyes, she saw the look of a little lost boy in his eyes. “What you've always done... Be a doctor.”

 

Somehow, when she reminded him of that, the darkness seemed to lighten. The sounds of battle faded, and an eerie silence fell on the scene.

 

“You told me the name you chose was a promise. What was the promise?

 

Ten looked over the scene in sadness. “Never cruel or cowardly.”

 

“Never give up,” the old warrior whispered. “Never give in.”

 

They watched people come out of hiding and look up to the clear sky. Children ran to their parents to be enveloped in loving embraces before the scene faded and they were once again standing in the barn. Eleven looked at them from under his eyebrows with an expression of expectation, as though he was waiting for them to make a connection.

 

Ten realised that Eleven was thinking of something very risky. “You're not actually suggesting that we change our own personal history?” Rose had tried that once with her father, and it had not gone well.

 

“We change history all the time,” he whispered, as though time itself were listening. “I'm suggesting far worse.”

 

“What, exactly?” the old, numberless Doctor asked hopefully.

 

“Gentlemen, I have had four hundred years to think about this,” he told them. Clara could feel the mood changing. He’d done it, he’d come up with a brilliant idea.

 

Eleven took his sonic screwdriver out of his jacket pocket. “I've changed my mind.” He 'sonicked' the big red button back into the Moment.

 

“There's still a billion billion Daleks up there, attacking,” Numberless said as Ten and Eleven started pacing excitedly.

 

“Yeah, there is... There is,” Eleven agreed. Clara was bubbling with excitement.

 

Ten had picked up on the idea. “But there's something those billion billion Daleks don't know.”

 

Eleven pointed at Ten, acknowledging the point. “Because if they did, they'd probably send for reinforcements.”

 

“What? What don't they know?” Clara asked. What had her Doctor realised?

 

“This time, there's three of us,” Eleven said with a conviction that would make the attacking Dalek army run for the hills.

 

Numberless looked up to the roof and clasped his head. “Oh! Oh, yes, that is good... That is brilliant!”

 

As Eleven’s idea radiated from his mind through time and space, Ten caught it as well. “Oh, oh, oh, I'm getting that too! That is brilliant!” He leapt into the air and slapped his TARDIS in excitement.

 

“Ha, ha, ha! I've been thinking about it for centuries,” Eleven told them. All of those ‘what ifs’ floating around in his head, occupying his thoughts and haunting his nightmares.

 

“She didn't just show me any old future, she showed me exactly the future I needed to see,” the old warrior told them in realisation.

 

That stumped them. “Eh? Who did?” Eleven asked.

 

“Oh, Bad Wolf girl, I could kiss you,” he said, blowing a kiss into the air.

  
“Sorry, did you just say Bad Wolf?” Ten asked. What did Bad Wolf have to do with saving Gallifrey?


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this is it! It's not going to end where you think it is.  
> For the Whovians out there, this is the answer to the quiz.  
> The first Doctor is from 'The Keys of Marinus'.  
> The second Doctor is from 'The seeds of death'.  
> The third Doctor is from 'Carnival of monsters'.  
> The fourth Doctor is from 'The brain of Morbius'.  
> The fifth Doctor is from 'Resurrection of the Daleks'.  
> The sixth Doctor is from 'The twin dilemma'.  
> The seventh Doctor is from 'Survival'.  
> The eighth Doctor is from 'The vengeance of Morbius'. (BBC radio drama)  
> The ninth Doctor is from 'Bad Wolf'. (The Doctor mentions that they had left Kyoto and a white light came through the walls of the TARDIS. I made up a story about Kyoto)

** Chapter 10 **

  


‘Clara sometimes asks me if I dream. Of course I dream, I tell her. Everybody dreams,’ he thought to himself. He was dreaming now wasn’t he?

‘But what do you dream about, she'll ask. The same thing everybody dreams about, I tell her. I dream about where I'm going. She always laughs at that. But you're not going anywhere, you're just wandering about,’ he thought, as he walked out of the TARDIS to join his other incarnations.

‘That's not true. Not any more. I have a new destination. My journey is the same as yours, the same as anyone's. It's taken me so many years, so many lifetimes, but at last I know where I'm going... Where I've always been going... Home, the long way round.’ He walked up to the assembled group of previous Doctors and looked up at Gallifrey, hanging in the star studded sky like a golden Christmas tree bauble.

Doctors One through Nine had no recollection of the events in 1562. When the Moment returned them to their proper time lines, and they materialised where they should be, their journey through the Time Fissure never happened for them. All they knew was that their eleventh incarnation needed their help, and somehow they were able to converge on the same point in time.

“It’s strange,” Numberless said after a long silence. “I’m sure I regenerated.”

Eleven looked sideways at him. “Not in my dream you didn’t.”

“But this isn’t a dream,” Numberless told him.

Eleven raised his eyebrows. “You know what that means then…”

Numberless rolled his eyes. “Please don’t tell me its ‘timey wimey’.”

“Nah, this is more ‘wibbly wobbly’,” Ten said from Eleven’s other side, flashing a mischievous grin.

Numberless chuckled. “Is this what I am to become in the future, Laurel and Hardy?”

“It could be worse,” Eleven said, and saw Numberless’s questioning look. “We could be the Three Stooges.”

“Don’t worry,” Nine said. “I’m the Doctor you remember regenerating into, and trust me; you wouldn’t catch me talking like that… Although, I think we’ve all said ‘that’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into’, to the TARDIS.”

“Mmm, quite so,” One said from behind them. “But does anyone know where this particular fine mess is, and how we got here?”

“Well, Chinny here seems to think we’re in his dream,” Numberless said.

“I don’t think I’d have a dream as dull as this,” Seven said, and then saw the questioning looks from the other Doctors as though he was calling them dull. “Present company accepted, of course.”

“Could it be like the Miniscope I was in?” Three asked. “Could we be inside a projection?”

“I say, what a fascinating idea,” Two said.

“Well, the Moment did it to us back in the barn,” Eleven said, looking between Numberless and Ten. “I suppose we could be inside the Moment.”

“Another question that comes to mind, is why we are here,” Eight said, to which they all nodded in agreement.

“Well, all our time lines are out of sync, so it’s a fair bet that we won’t remember any of this,” Six said, now recovered from his bad regeneration, but not his bad fashion sense.

“Maybe that’s it,” Four said. “Maybe the Moment has given us this opportunity to say thank you to the Doctor who ended the Time War before our time lines get back into sync.”

“Which number are you by the way,” Five asked.

“Oh, I don’t think I deserve a number. After Eight there, I never considered myself to be the Doctor. I was an aberration, created by the Sisterhood of Karn.”

“Tell me, why is it I’m always the last to arrive at these shindigs? Is the Moment discriminating against me because I’m Scottish?” Twelve said as he joined the group.

“I wouldn’t have thought so,” Nine said. “After all, you’re not really Scottish are you? We’re all Lungbarrowmas’s.”

“Hmmm, I suppose so.” He looked around the assembled group. “So we did it then… Saved the old home world.”

“Yes, we were just saying, it’s all down to the Doctor without a number there, he had the nerve to break into the Omega Arsenal and take the Moment,” Three said.

“No,” Numberless croaked. “I was all set to destroy Gallifrey and everyone on it. It was these two remarkable Doctors here who saved it,” he said, indicating Eleven and Ten with a sweep of his arm.

“We all did it,” Eleven said.

“And we should all take comfort in knowing that although Gallifrey is lost somewhere in an alternative universe, she is safe.” Ten said.

“Here, here.” “Absolutely.” “Fantastic.” All the Doctors expressed their feelings of relief.

“Ah, can you feel it?” One said. “The time lines are starting to correct themselves. Points in flux are starting to become fixed.” He slowly started to fade. “Farewell my fellow selves… farewell.”

“Oh, I say… I can feel it too. Cheerio,” Two said, as he also started to fade.

As they waited to say goodbye to Three, Four went to one side and looked up to the starry sky. “Er, Moment? I don’t know if you can hear me, but I was wondering if I could have a word.”

“Ah, it’s my turn,” Three said. “Goodbye and good luck to you all.”

Four continued his one sided conversation. "It's just that I know you can bypass the Backtime Field Buffers and allow more than one time line to co-exist. It's just that I've taken up painting and sketching again... don't know why, just felt the urge one day. Anyway, I wouldn't mind being a curator of an art gallery… you know... if there's a position available. A nice little retirement plan so to speak."

Four started to fade. “Oh well, it was worth a try. See you all,” he said with a wave. The fourth Doctor went back to his adventures with Leela, unaware that he was also curator of the Under Gallery at the National Gallery in London. It was the least the Moment could do as a reward for his part in saving Gallifrey.

“I suppose it's my turn next,” Five said. “Can I just say that it's been a pleasure and an honour working with you all.” The remaining Doctors waved and said goodbye as he faded.

Eight had a little laugh as a thought came to him. “This reminds me of being at a party, and waiting for the taxi to arrive to take you home.”

“And here it is,” Six said. “Taxi for the Doctor. Take care my friends.”

“Hey Doctor,” Twelve called out as he started to fade. “Don’t let anyone stop you from wearing that coat, you hear me?”

Six looked down at his coat and pulled on his lapels. He looked up, nodded, and smiled, fading away like the Cheshire Cat.

Seven put his umbrella under his arm and prepared to leave. “Do you think you’ll ever see Gallifrey again?”

“There’s always time,” Eleven said with a lopsided smile.

Seven gave a single laugh, looked up as he felt it, and raised his hat in salute. “Goodbye.”

“And then there were five,” Eight said with a melancholy air. “It's been good though, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah. We were a bit awesome,” Nine said.

Eight nodded and faded. “Awesome!”

"Yes, but we weren't just a bit awesome," Numberless said. "We were incredibly awesome."

"Yer not wrong there," Nine said with a laugh.

"Unbelievably awesome," Eleven said.

"Molto bene," Ten said.

"Ah, I think my ride is here." He faced Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve. "Gentlemen, be outstanding." He bowed slightly and faded away.

“So… my turn next then,” Nine said awkwardly. “Don’t really like goodbyes.”

“We know!” Ten, Eleven, and Twelve said together.

“Look, just get outta here,” Ten said with a smile.

“Yeah,” he said and gave an awkward wave as he disappeared.

“You two take care, yeah?” Ten said as he turned to face them, holding out his hand.

Eleven shook his hand. “Always strong and courageous.”

Twelve shook his hand as well. “Always onward, always upward.”

Ten touched his forehead in salute. “Allons-y”

“I suppose this is it then, the last goodbye,” Eleven said.

“If you’re expecting a monologue from ‘Casablanca’, you can forget it,” Twelve said with a scowl.

“Hah! I've got a job to do too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Doctor, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of thirteen awesome Doctors don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy universe. Someday you'll understand that. Now... now. Here's looking at you, kid.”

Twelve grinned as Eleven faded away with a lopsided smile. “Yes, I’ve got a job to do as well.” He looked around the misty scene. “Typical! Last to arrive, and the last to leave,” he complained. “Hey, Moment? You and I have got to have a serious talk.”

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

The Doctor was old, balding, and standing on a Trenzalor bell tower looking up at the Dalek Mother Ship. “Sorry I'm a bit slow. I may not be at my best right now.”

“You are dying, Doctor,” the Dalek voice screeched through the air.

“Yes, I'm dying. You've been trying to kill me for centuries, and here I am, dying of old age. If you want something done, do it yourself.”

“You will die, and the Time Lords will never return.” It almost sounded as though the unemotional Dalek was gloating.

“You still can't work up the courage to shoot me, can you?” he said. He shook his stick in the air at them. “You're still worried I've got something up my sleeve,” he shouted, before slumping against the parapet. “Well, you knock yourselves out, boys. I've got nothing this time.”

Flying Daleks fired at the troops on the ground, making the townsfolk scream. Then a crack opened in the sky and golden regeneration energy entered the Doctor's mouth.

“You will die now, Doctor. This is the end of you,” the Dalek screeched, but he wasn’t paying any attention. He was watching wide eyed as his hands glowed with Artron energy.

The crack in the sky sealed itself as the Dalek spoke. “The rules of regeneration are known. You have expended all your lives.”

“Sorry, what did you say?” he shouted at the ship. “Did you mention the rules? Now, listen. Bit of advice. Tell me the truth if you think you know it. Lay down the law if you're feeling brave. But, Daleks... never, ever tell me the rules!”

“Emergency! Emergency! The Doctor is regenerating!” the Daleks screeched, almost in a panic.

The tower clock struck twelve. The Doctor was already feeling more youthful, although he didn't look it.

“The Doctor is regenerating!”

“Oh, look at this. Regeneration number thirteen. We're breaking some serious science here, boys. I tell you what; it's going to be a whopper!”

“Exterminate! Exterminate the Doctor.”

“You think you can stop me now, Daleks? If you want my life, ha, ha, come and get it!” He swung his right arm around and around, before firing a long stream of energy out from his hand. He fired another stream from his left hand. The burning remains of flying Daleks tumbled to the ground like spent fireworks.

“Love from Gallifrey, boys!” he shouted as a stream of energy shot out of his mouth up to the Dalek Mother Ship. A massive shockwave from the exploding Mother Ship ripped open the remaining Daleks on the ground. It even rocked the TARDIS as it travelled out of the town and through the countryside. The energy stream stopped, and an eerie silence fell.

The revitalised Doctor made his way down the tower, onto the street, and along to the TARDIS. He could feel the Artron energy coursing through his veins, and he sagged against the door. It was time... time to make a special call to a special girl. He opened the cover of the police phone in the door, and dialled the number.

“Hello?” Clara said. Hang on; what was he going to say? “Hello?” she said again when no one answered.

“It's me,” he said.

“Yes, it's you. Who's this?” she asked slightly annoyed that someone was messing about.

“It's me, Clara. The Doctor.”

“What do you mean, the Doctor?”

“I'm phoning you from Trenzalore.”

“I don't…”

“From before I changed. I mean it's all still to happen for me. It's coming. Oh, it's a-coming.”

She remembered replacing the TARDIS phone back on its cradle when the Dalek attack had ended.

“Not long now. I can feel it.”

“Why? Why would you do this?”

“Because I think it's going to be a whopper, and I think you might be scared. And however scared you are, Clara, the man you are with right now, the man I hope you are with, believe me, he is more scared than anything you can imagine right now and he, he needs you.”

“So who is it?” a Scottish voice asked in the background.

“Is that the Doctor?” Eleven and Twelve asked together.

“Yes,” she said to both of them.

“He sounds old. Please tell me I didn't get old. Anything but old. I was young. Oh, is he grey?”

Clara had to smile at his runaway mouth. “Yes.”

“Clara, please, hey, for me, help him. Go on. And don't be afraid. Goodbye, Clara. Miss ya.”

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

The Doctor regained consciousness on the side of a volcano. There was a face hugging Kantrofarri, or Dream Crab dead on the ground beside him.

“Clara!” he called out, realising that she was in danger of dreaming herself to death. He hurried into the TARDIS and set the coordinates for Clara’s home.

He found her in her bedroom with a Dream Crab attached to her face, feeding on her brain tissue. He took out his sonic screwdriver and 'sonicked' the parasite to get it off her. He was relieved to see her young face as he remembered it, not as the sixty year old Clara of his enforced dream.

“Doctor,” she said as she woke up. “Am I young?” She’d had the same dream where she’d been in her sixties.

What kind of question was that to ask a Time Lord who could regenerate? “No idea,” he said. He looked around her bedroom and grabbed a hand mirror for her to look in. “Is that any good?”

She looked in the mirror and smiled. “Oh, that's good.”

He was standing still, watching her, trying to gauge her reaction after the dreams she’d had. “The TARDIS is outside,” he said hesitantly.

“So?”

“So, all of time and all of space is sitting out there. A big blue box. Please, don't even argue,” he said gently. He hated it when humans argued with him. I mean, he had the intellect to talk rings around the greatest scientist on Earth. Why argue when they knew he was right?

She thought about his offer, and a big grin spread across her face. She gave him her hand and kissed his cheek. “Merry Christmas, Doctor.”

“Merry Christmas, Clara Oswald,” he said affectionately.

They ran out of the room like excited children and made their way outside into the snow, where the TARDIS was waiting. “Well, look at you, all happy. That's rare,” she laughed.

“Do you know what's rarer? Second chances,” he said, as he thought about his last, impossible regeneration and how he should be dead. He thought about Gallifrey, and how the Moment had given them a second chance to save it.

“I never get a second chance, so what happened this time? Don't even know who to thank,” he told her.

  
The Time Lords? His previous incarnations? The Moment? Maybe even Santa Claus?

** The End **


End file.
